Automated characterization of the gray matter white matter distribution demonstrates age-related decline.

ABSTRACT: Neuroimaging techniques offer valuable insights into the structural characteristics of the brain. For example, a salient feature of the cerebrum is the distinct transition of voxel intensity at the interface of gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM). Leveraging the inherent difference in tissue composition - lower GM and higher WM signal on T1-weighted (T1W) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) - we introduce a novel metric, distance between peaks of WM and GM intensities, which unlike GM/WM contrast does not rely on segmentation and demonstrate its efficacy in capturing age-related effects. A single 3D T1W whole brain MRI (MP-RAGE, 1 mm isotropic voxels) image was acquired at 3 Tesla from each of 178 healthy participants (18-91 years (54.78 ± 21.37), 103 Female) between 2019 and 2023. Before

SUBMITTER: Song JY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12858928 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature