The shape of your brain could predict dementia later in life

"Experts are finding that the best way to understand how the brain ages is not by examining individual parts, but by studying its overall structure and how its different regions interact with one another. In a large study, researchers from Irvine, California and Tenerife, Spain, used brain scans to measure these shape changes. They discovered that as people age, the brain does not shrink evenly. Instead, it changes shape in specific ways."

"The bottom portions of the brain, responsible for essential functions such as breathing and heartbeat, and the front parts, critical to certain cognitive functions, tend to expand outward. The top parts, crucial for language functions, and the back parts, involved in visual processing and motor control, tend to compress inward. The distance between matching areas on the left and right sides of the brain, especially in the front, also increases."

"The physical pulling apart of the brain's hemispheres is a powerful indicator of reduced communication and coordination between the left and right sides of the brain. When the connection between hemispheres weakens, the brain's network becomes less efficient. These specific shape changes, confirmed across multiple groups, were directly linked to poorer cognitive skills, such as reasoning, marking them as a clear physical sign of cognitive impairment."

Brain shape changes with age occur unevenly and involve region-specific expansion and compression rather than uniform shrinkage. The lower brain regions and frontal areas typically expand outward, while upper and posterior regions compress inward, and left-right distances—especially in frontal regions—increase. Hemispheric separation signals reduced communication and coordination across hemispheres and results in a less efficient brain network. These structural changes are directly associated with poorer cognitive skills such as reasoning and have been confirmed across multiple groups. Normal aging also involves gradual shrinkage, about 0.2 percent per year after 60, reaching roughly 10–15 percent smaller by age 80 compared with the 30s.

Read at Mail Online