![]() ![]() However, as is apparent from the brain charts, while brain size decreases naturally with age, it does so much faster in Alzheimer's patients.ĭr Bethlehem explained: "We're still at an extremely early stage with our Brain Charts, showing that it is possible to create these tools by bringing together huge datasets. In the same way that some healthy adults are taller than others, so there is variability in brain size - in other words, a slightly smaller brain does not necessarily indicate there is something wrong. The datasets already have around 165 different diagnostic labels, meaning that researchers can see how the brain differs in conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.Īlzheimer's disease causes neurodegeneration and a loss of brain tissue, so people affected by the condition are likely to have reduced brain volume compared to their peers. While the brain charts are already proving useful for research, in the long term, the team intend them to be used as a clinical tool. Grey matter volume in the subcortex (which controls bodily functions and basic behaviour) peaks in adolescence at 14-and-a-half years old.The decline in white matter volume begins to accelerate after 50 years.The volume of white matter (brain connections) also increased rapidly from mid-gestation through early childhood and peaks just before we are 29 years old.The volume of grey matter (brain cells) increases rapidly from mid-gestation onwards, peaking just before we are six years old.It's allowed us to measure the very early, rapid changes that are happening in the brain, and the long, slow decline as we age."Īmong the key milestones observed by the team were: The brain charts have allowed the researchers to confirm - and in some cases, show for the first time - developmental milestones that have previously only been hypothesised, such as at what age the brain's major tissue classes reach peak volume and when do specific regions of the brain reach maturity.ĭr Richard Bethlehem from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, one of the co-leads of the study, said: "One of the things we've been able to do, through a very concerted global effort, is to stitch together data across the whole life span. The incredible growing and shrinking brain Unlike paediatric growth charts, BrainChart - published on the open access site brainchart.io - covers the whole lifespan, from development in the womb through to old age, and aims to create a common language to describe the variability in brain development and maturation. Today's study, published in Nature, is a major step towards filling this gap. The lack of tools for standardised assessment of brain development and aging is particularly relevant to the study of psychiatric disorders, where the differences between conditions and the heterogeneity within them demands instruments that can say something meaningful about a single individual in the way clinical reference charts can, and to conditions such as Alzheimer's disease that cause degeneration of brain tissue and cognitive decline. There are no analogous reference charts for measuring age-related changes in the human brain. A typical growth chart might plot age on the horizontal axis versus height on the vertical axis, but rather than being a single line, it will show a range that reflects the natural variability in height, weight or head circumference. Growth charts have been a cornerstone of paediatric healthcare for over 200 years and are used ubiquitously in clinics to help monitor the growth and development of children in comparison to their peers. Although not currently intended for clinical use, the team hopes the charts will become a routine clinical tool similar to how standardised paediatric growth charts are used. The charts are the result of a research project spanning six continents and bringing together possibly the largest ever MRI datasets ever aggregated - almost 125,000 brain scans from over a 100 different studies. ![]()
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