Establishing the size of normal brain structures

A recent study published in the journal Neuroimage by Olivier Potvin, Abderazzak Mouiha, Louis Dieumegarde and Simon Duchesne analyzed brain scans from almost 2,800 healthy individuals in order to build a model of the normal size range of various brain structure in indivual of all ages. This kind of model, a bit like growth charts for kids, is a very important tool to detect if the atrophy (loss of tissue) in a specific region is due to normal aging or, conversely, possibly a pathology such as Alzheimer's disease.

Learn more about this study in an article in Le Fil de l'Université Laval: Prendre la mesure du cerveau by Jean Hamann (in French), or read the original scientific publication here:

Potvin O, Mouiha A, Dieumegarde L, Duchesne S; Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. Normative data for subcortical regional volumes over the lifetime of the adult human brain. Neuroimage. 2016 Aug 15;137:9-20. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.05.016. Epub 2016 May 7