Comparison of Differences in Brain Structure Between Teenagers and Twenties Brain Using 3 T Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Abstract

Total cerebral volume increases very rapidly in childhood, peaking in early teenage years then declining in adolescence. However, most studies quantified only one or few structures and the relative development pattern of subcortical structures is still unclear. For our study, we aim to examine the cortical, subcortical and structural changes associated with age by comparing the cortical and subcortical volumes between 52 healthy teens and 40 healthy twenties using 3 T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In late adolescence, volumes of gray matter (GM) decreased and white matter (WM) increased, and asymmetry between the left and right hemispheres of the brains was found to be similar between teenagers and twenties. Only occipital GM, nucleus accumbens and thalamus showed difference in asymmetry. Various previous studies have shown that studying morphological changes of developing brains can be useful in identifying certain structural abnormalities associated with psychiatric and neurological diseases modifications in the brain. Therefore, we believe our analysis of volumetric differences in cortical and subcortical structures could be helpful for identifying neurophysiological changes that occur in transition from adolescence to adulthood.