Alotaibi Majed M, De Marco Matteo, Venneri Annalena
Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom.
Department of Medical Genomics Research, King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2023 May 31;17:1130200. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2023.1130200. eCollection 2023.
Aging plays a major role in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, and impacts neuronal loss. Olfactory dysfunction can be an early alteration heralding the presence of a neurodegenerative disorder in aging. Studying alterations in olfaction-related brain regions might help detection of neurodegenerative diseases at an earlier stage as well as protect individuals from any danger caused by loss of sense of smell.
To assess the effect of age and sex on olfactory cortex volume in cognitively healthy participants.
Neurologically healthy participants were divided in three groups based on their age: young (20-35 years; = 53), middle-aged (36-65 years; = 66) and older (66-85 years; = 95). T1-weighted MRI scans acquired at 1.5 T were processed using SPM12. Smoothed images were used to extract the volume of olfactory cortex regions.
ANCOVA analyses showed significant differences in volume between age groups in the olfactory cortex ( ≤ 0.0001). In women, neuronal loss started earlier than in men (in the 4th decade of life), while in men more substantial neuronal loss in olfactory cortex regions was detected only later in life.
Data indicate that age-related reduction in the volume of the olfactory cortex starts earlier in women than in men. The findings suggest that volume changes in olfaction-related brain regions in the aging population deserve further attention as potential proxies of increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases.
衰老在诸如阿尔茨海默病等神经退行性疾病中起主要作用，并影响神经元丧失。嗅觉功能障碍可能是衰老过程中神经退行性疾病存在的早期改变。研究嗅觉相关脑区的改变可能有助于在更早阶段检测神经退行性疾病，并保护个体免受嗅觉丧失所带来的任何危险。
评估年龄和性别对认知健康参与者嗅觉皮质体积的影响。
将神经功能健康的参与者根据年龄分为三组：年轻组（20 - 35岁；n = 53）、中年组（36 - 65岁；n = 66）和老年组（66 - 85岁；n = 95）。使用SPM12对在1.5T下采集的T1加权MRI扫描图像进行处理。使用平滑后的图像提取嗅觉皮质区域的体积。
协方差分析显示嗅觉皮质的体积在年龄组之间存在显著差异（p ≤ 0.0001）。在女性中，神经元丧失比男性更早开始（在生命的第四个十年），而在男性中，仅在生命后期才检测到嗅觉皮质区域更大量的神经元丧失。
数据表明，与年龄相关的嗅觉皮质体积减少在女性中比男性开始得更早。研究结果表明，老年人群中嗅觉相关脑区的体积变化作为神经退行性疾病风险增加的潜在指标值得进一步关注。
