Correlation Engine 2.0
Clear Search sequence regions


  • adult (3)
  • cognition (5)
  • cohorts (4)
  • female (1)
  • humans (1)
  • locus coeruleus (7)
  • pars (5)
  • substantia nigra (4)
  • young adult (1)
  • Sizes of these terms reflect their relevance to your search.

    Locus coeruleus (LC) and substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) degrade with normal aging, but not much is known regarding how these changes manifest in MRI images, or whether these markers predict aspects of cognition. Here, we use high-resolution diffusion-weighted MRI to investigate microstructural and compositional changes in LC and SNpc in young and older adult cohorts, as well as their relationship with cognition. In LC, the older cohort exhibited a significant reduction in mean and radial diffusivity, but a significant increase in fractional anisotropy compared with the young cohort. We observed a significant correlation between the decrease in LC mean, axial, and radial diffusivities and measures examining cognition (Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test delayed recall) in the older adult cohort. This observation suggests that LC is involved in retaining cognitive abilities. In addition, we observed that iron deposition in SNpc occurs early in life and continues during normal aging. Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

    Citation

    Jason Langley, Sana Hussain, Justino J Flores, Ilana J Bennett, Xiaoping Hu. Characterization of age-related microstructural changes in locus coeruleus and substantia nigra pars compacta. Neurobiology of aging. 2020 Mar;87:89-97

    Expand section icon Mesh Tags

    Expand section icon Substances


    PMID: 31870645

    View Full Text