• Stefan J Teipel, Maximilian Lerche, Ingo Kilimann, Kieran O'Brien, Michel Grothe, Peter Meyer, Xingfeng Li, Peter Sänger, and Karlheinz Hauenstein.
• Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, University Medicine Rostock, Rostock, Germany; DZNE, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Rostock, Germany.
• J Magn Reson Imaging. 2014 Aug 1; 40 (2): 348-59.

PurposeWe applied a novel diffusion spectrum imaging (DSI) acquisition to determine associations between aging and subcortical fiber tract integrity.Materials And MethodsWe studied 35 cognitively healthy subjects (17 women), spanning the adult age range between 23 and 77 years, using anatomical MRI and a novel DSI acquisition scheme at 3 Tesla. The study was approved by the local institutional review board. DSI data were analyzed using tractography and complementary voxel-based analysis of generalized fractional anisotropy (GFA) maps. We determined the effects of age on generalized fractional anisotropy in selected fiber tracts as well as in a whole brain voxel-based analysis. For comparison, we studied the effects of age on regional gray and white matter volumes.ResultsWe found a significant reduction in anterior corpus callosum fiber tract integrity with age (P < 0.001), as well as significant GFA reduction throughout the subcortical white matter (P < 0.05, false discovery rate [FDR] corrected). GFA decline was accompanied by significant gray matter atrophy in frontal and temporal association cortex (P < 0.05, FDR corrected).ConclusionOur data suggest that normal aging leads to a regionally specific decline in fiber tract integrity. DSI may become a useful biomarker in healthy and pathological aging.© 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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