There are limited data available regarding the effects of age and sex on discrete prefrontal gray and white matter volumes or posterior and anterior hippocampal volumes in healthy humans. Volumes of the superior frontal gyrus, anterior cingulate gyrus, and orbital frontal lobe were computed manually from contiguous magnetic resonance (MR) images in 83 (39M/44F) healthy humans (age range = 16-40) and segmented into gray and white matter. Volumes of the posterior and anterior hippocampal formation were also computed with reliable separation of the anterior hippocampal formation from the amygdala. There were significant age-by-tissue type interactions for the superior frontal gyrus and orbital frontal lobe such that gray matter within these regions correlated significantly and inversely with age. In contrast, no significant age effects were evident within regional white matter volumes. Analysis of hippocampal volumes indicated that men had larger volumes of the anterior, but not posterior hippocampal formation compared to women even following correction for total brain size. These data highlight age effects within discrete prefrontal cortical gray matter regions in young and middle aged healthy humans and suggest that the white matter comprising these regions may be more resistant to age effects. Furthermore, understanding the potential role of sex and age in mediating prefrontal cortical and hippocampal volumes may have strong relevance for psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia that have implicated neurodevelopmental abnormalities within frontotemporal circuits in their pathogenesis.
Pubmed ID: 22488952 RIS Download
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THIS RESOURCE IS NO LONGER IN SERVICE, documented on February 06, 2013. Per the associated paper, Aguirre GK (2012) FIASCO, VoxBo, and MEDx: behind the code. Neuroimage 62: 765-7, the MedX software was discontinued. The website itself however, looks like you can still buy it (website last updated 2004). Highly optimized, portable, commercial software for the visualization, processing, and analysis of medical images. The packages include: SPM '99, FSL, DICOM Import/Export, ABLe, Functional Data Simulator. Designed especially for medical imaging researchers and system developers, MEDx brings multi-modality, multi-dimensional image processing functionality to the medical imaging research community. With MEDx, users display images and control menus using the industry-standard XWindow display system and Tcl/Tk interface language. MEDx transforms your computer into a powerful image processing workstation that displays, analyzes, and processes your medical image data in a myriad of innovative ways.
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