101 years old brain - normal aging


Yes, as you can see in the title this (female) person is 101 years old. I wanted to show those images as an example of "successful aging". There is some cortical atrophy (GCA 2), some temporal atrophy (MTA 1 right and 2-3 left) as well as some central atrophy and slight atrophy in corpus callosum. Brainstem and cerebellum show no significant signs of atrophy. There is an old lacunar infarction medially in the left thalamus and some ischemic changes in the anterior parts of the left internal capsule but without signs of extensive microvascular disease. By simply looking at the brain I would estimate the age at about 80. BTW. It is known that the atrophy tends to progress in logarithmic and nonlinear fashion - meaning that you see more progression of atrophy in advanced age compared to less change in the younger ages - as a general rule of aging. However of course there are exceptions to this rule.

Update with another example of s.k. "normal aging". This is a brain CT of a 96 years old person. There are some white matter degenerative changes but there is not much atrophy. See image below. 



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