Abstract #4052

Regional Brain T2-Relaxation Changes with Age in Healthy Adult Subjects

Rajesh Kumar¹, Mary A. Woo², Sean Delshad¹, Paul M. Macey², Ronald M. Harper¹

¹Neurobiology, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States; ²UCLA School of Nursing, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Normal-aging and pathologic processes show brain changes in adults, reflecting increased free water content. The association of pathologic processes with free water provides an index for determining tissue injury. However, such assessments require partitioning normal age-related changes. We assessed wide-spread brain areas using T2-relaxometry, and showed positive correlations between T2-relaxation values and age in multiple sites; few regions showed negative correlations (putamen, ventral pons). Frontal, basal-ganglia, temporal, occipital, and cerebellar sites showed gender-related T2-relaxation differences. The normal age-related brain changes in adults offer baseline values, and highlight the need to control for age- and gender-related changes during disease-related tissue evaluation.