Fornix white matter glia damage causes hippocampal gray matter damage during age-dependent limbic decline.

ABSTRACT: Aging leads to gray and white matter decline but their causation remains unclear. We explored two classes of models of age and dementia risk related brain changes. The first class of models emphasises the importance of gray matter: age and risk-related processes cause neurodegeneration and this causes damage in associated white matter tracts. The second class of models reverses the direction of causation: aging and risk factors cause white matter damage and this leads to gray matter damage. We compared these models with linear mediation analysis and quantitative MRI indices (from diffusion, quantitative magnetization transfer and relaxometry imaging) of tissue properties in two limbic structures implicated in age-related memory decline: the hippocampus and the fornix in 166 asymptomatic in

SUBMITTER: Metzler-Baddeley C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6355929 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature