Measures of brain morphology and infarction in the framingham heart study: establishing what is normal

Numerous anatomical and brain imaging studies find substantial differences in brain structure between men and women across the span of human aging. The ability to extend the results of many of these studies to the general population is limited, however, due to the generally small sample size and restrictive health criteria of these studies. Moreover, little attention has been paid to the possible impact of brain infarction on age-related differences in regional brain volumes. Given the current lack of normative data on gender and aging related differences in regional brain morphology, particularly with regard to the impact of brain infarctions, we chose to quantify brain MRIs from more than 2200 male and female participants of the Framingham Heart Study who ranged in age from 34 to 97 years. We believe that MRI analysis of the Framingham Heart Study more closely represents the general population enabling more accurate estimates of regional brain changes that occur as the consequence of normal aging.