Memory loss can suddenly speed up with age: Study

Washington DC [US], January 15 : A massive international brain study has revealed that memory decline with age isn't driven by a single brain region or gene, but by widespread structural changes across the brain that build up over time.

Analysing thousands of MRI scans and memory tests from healthy adults, researchers found that memory loss accelerates as brain tissue shrinkage increases, especially later in life.

While the hippocampus plays a key role, many other brain regions also contribute, forming a broad vulnerability rather than isolated damage.

An unprecedented international research effort combining brain imaging and memory testing from thousands of adults is offering a clearer picture of how age-related brain changes affect memory.

By bringing together data from multiple long-running studies, scientists were able to examine how memory performance shifts alongside structural changes in the brain over time.

The analysis drew on more than 10,000 MRI scans and over 13,000 memory assessments from 3,700 cognitively healthy adults across 13 separate studies.

The results which tracked people across a wide age range revealed that the link between brain shrinkage and memory decline is not simple or linear. The association grows stronger in later life and cannot be explained only by well-known genetic risk factors for Alzheimer's disease, including APOE e4.

Together, the findings suggest that brain aging involves complex, widespread changes rather than damage driven by a single cause.

Memory Decline Reflects Widespread Brain Changes

Published in Nature Communications, the study titled "Vulnerability to memory decline in aging revealed by a mega-analysis of structural brain change" shows that memory-related brain changes extend far beyond one isolated region.

Although the hippocampus showed the strongest connection between volume loss and declining memory, many other areas of the brain were also involved.

Both cortical and subcortical regions demonstrated meaningful relationships between structural decline and memory performance. Rather than pointing to failure in a single brain structure, the findings indicate a distributed vulnerability across the brain.

Researchers observed a gradual pattern across regions, with the hippocampus showing the largest effects and smaller but still significant associations appearing across much of the brain.

A Nonlinear Pattern With Accelerating Effects

The researchers also found that the relationship between brain atrophy and memory loss varied widely between individuals and followed a nonlinear pattern.

People who experienced faster-than-average structural brain loss showed much steeper declines in memory. This suggests that once brain shrinkage passes a certain level, its impact on memory increases more rapidly instead of progressing at a steady pace.

This accelerating effect appeared across many brain regions, not just the hippocampus. The consistency of this pattern supports the idea that memory decline during healthy aging reflects large-scale and network-level structural changes.

While the hippocampus remains especially sensitive, it functions as part of a broader system rather than acting alone.

What the Findings Mean for Understanding Aging

"By integrating data across dozens of research cohorts, we now have the most detailed picture yet of how structural changes in the brain unfold with age and how they relate to memory," said Alvaro Pascual-Leone, MD, PhD, senior scientist at the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research and medical director at the Deanna and Sidney Wolk Center for Memory Health.

"Cognitive decline and memory loss are not simply the consequence of ageing, but manifestations of individual predispositions and age-related processes enabling neurodegenerative processes and diseases.

These results suggest that memory decline in ageing is not just about one region or one gene it reflects a broad biological vulnerability in brain structure that accumulates over decades.

Understanding this can help researchers identify individuals at risk early, and develop more precise and personalised interventions that support cognitive health across the lifespan and prevent cognitive disability."

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