Abstract
Accurate knowledge of adult human brain volume (BV) is critical for studies of aging- and disease-related brain alterations, and for monitoring the trajectories of neural and cognitive functions in conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injury. This scoping meta-analysis aggregates normative reference values for BV and three related volumetrics—gray matter volume (GMV), white matter volume (WMV) and cerebrospinal fluid volume (CSFV)—from typically-aging adults studied cross-sectionally using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Drawing from an aggregate sample of 9,473 adults, this study provides (A) regression coefficients β describing the age-dependent trajectories of volumetric measures by sex within the range from 20 to 70 years based on both linear and quadratic models, and (B) average values for BV, GMV, WMV and CSFV at the representative ages of 20 (young age), 45 (middle age) and 70 (old age). The results provided synthesize ∼20 years of brain volumetrics research and allow one to estimate BV at any age between 20 and 70. Importantly, however, such estimates should be used and interpreted with caution because they depend on MRI hardware specifications (e.g. scanner manufacturer, magnetic field strength), data acquisition parameters (e.g. spatial resolution, weighting), and brain segmentation algorithms. Guidelines are proposed to facilitate future meta- and mega-analyses of brain volumetrics.
Disclosure statement The author declares that he has no actual or potential conflicts of interest.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
Information Sharing Statement Data and code related to this study can be made available by the author upon request.
This revision is an update which reflects the accepted manuscript. It contains modifications, corrections and additions to the main text, figures and tables.
- Abbreviations
- AD
- Alzheimer’s disease
- AIC
- Akaike information criterion
- AIR
- automated image registration B magnetic field strength
- BET
- brain extraction tool
- BV
- brain volume
- CSF
- cerebrospinal fluid
- CSFV
- erebrospinal fluid volume
- CT
- computed tomography
- EM
- expectation maximization
- ETL
- echo train length
- ExBrain
- extended brain
- F
- female(s)
- FSL
- FMRIB software library
- GE
- General Electric
- GM
- gray matter
- GMV
- gray matter volume
- ICV
- intracranial volume
- M
- male(s)
- MIDAS
- metabolite imaging and data analysis system
- mm
- millimeter
- ms
- millisecond
- MRI
- magnetic resonance imaging
- PD
- Parkinson’s disease
- RAVENS
- regional analysis of volumes examined in normalized space
- SPM
- statistical parametric mapping
- T
- tesla
- TE
- echo time
- TI
- inversion time
- TR
- repetition time
- TBI
- traumatic brain injury var various
- VBM
- voxel-based morphometry
- WM
- white matter
- WMV
- white matter volume