Jianli Wang1, Megha
Patel1, Deborah Dossick1, Michele L. Shaffer2,
Christopher W. Weitekamp1, Xiaoyu Sun1, Jeffrey Vesek1,
Paul J. Eslinger3, David J. Jill3, James R. Connor4,
Qing X. Yang1,4
1Radiology, Penn
State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA; 2Public Health
Sciences, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA; 3Neurology,
Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA; 4Neurosurgery,
Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA
The goal of this study was to elucidate a quantitative developmental/aging characteristics and its variability on regional transverse relaxation rates (R2) in normal human brain without a priori models. R2 maps were acquired from seventy-seven 9 to 85 year-old healthy volunteers at 3 T. The result shows that the age dependence of R2 varied with respect to brain anatomy. The relationships between R2 and age determined by generalized additive models were nonlinear in most of the 25 brain structures studied.