The popular myth about brain aging turned out to be a lie

Sensational discovery: women's brains don't age faster than men's, Norwegian scientists found out

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), reports TUT.AZ with reference to Gazeta.ru.

Scientists from the University of Oslo have debunked the widespread myth about faster aging of the female brain by analyzing an impressive array of data — more than 12 thousand MRI scans of almost 5 thousand healthy volunteers of different ages. The uniqueness of the study lies in the long-term observation of participants who underwent examination several times at three-year intervals.

Specialists measured the thickness and area of the cerebral cortex, as well as the volume of gray and white matter. It turned out that in men, the decrease in brain volume and thinning of the cortex occur slightly faster, especially in areas responsible for vision and memory. In women, age-related changes were more noticeable only in a small part of the temporal lobe. However, the differences between the sexes were minimal - for example, the rate of decrease in cortical thickness differed by approximately one-tenth of a percent per year.

After the researchers took into account the average difference in life expectancy between men and women, the differences almost disappeared. This suggests that brain aging itself does not explain the higher incidence of Alzheimer's disease in women.

"We found no signs of more rapid age-related degradation of the female brain," notes study author Anne Ravndal. According to her, the reasons for differences in the prevalence of dementia are likely related to genetics, life expectancy, or diagnostic features.

In the future, scientists plan to study how changes in brain structure affect memory in representatives of different sexes - perhaps changes of the same scale affect cognitive abilities differently.