AGE-RELATED CEREBRAL VENTRICULAR VOLUME CHANGES IN HEALTHY ELDERLY HUMANS

Normal aging is associated with morphological alte-rations in brain. Ventricular system is located deep inside brain and reflect the overall process of parenchymal atrophy. Once neurode-generative disorders course with more prominent dilatation of brain ventricles, to establish normative volumetric parameters from Brazi-lian healthy old individuals is necessary, and it may be an additional tool on differentiation from the normal to pathological. Objective : To investigate brain ventricular volume changes in Brazilian healthy el-derly people. Methods : Transversal study using magnetic resonance imaging (1.5T) of the brain from 21 elderly healthy volunteers (67A6 years old). Data were assessed with manual segmentation techni-que. Regions of interest were the brain ventricles and intracranial volumes. Old (60-69 years old, 15 women) and Older (>69 years old) groups were created for analysis. Results : Volume of all ventricular compartments significantly increased ( p <.001) with age, with excep-tion of the fourth ventricle. The third and lateral ventricles increased between groups 2.1- and 2.8-fold, respectively. Mean total ventricular volume was 1.2A.4% of intracranial volume in Old and 3.2A1.8% in Ol-der group (p<.001), which represents 15A6ml and 40A24ml (p=.001), respectively. We observed a moderate to strong positive correlation between ventricular volume and age, with the best correlation in the third ventricle (r=.710). Total intracranial volume diminished with age, but without statistical significance. Conclusions : Brain ventricles vo-lume increased significantly with age in healthy old individuals, with exception of the fourth ventricle.