Personal Injury Law

Are Older Brains Really Smaller Than Young Ones?

By Bruce Stern

A recent report from the journal Neuropsychology argues that the common misconception that brains in older individuals are smaller than those of younger people is false. Researchers state that this theory was derived from the way in which studies have been conducted over the years. In the past, research was gathered from studies which look at thousands of MRI's from people who are already ill. These studies do not screen out people who had undetected and slowly growing brain diseases. 

The new study observed older individuals who were healthy for nine years prior to the test and found that those without a pre-existing medical condition had relatively similar sized brains as those of younger people. Those who did have a pre-existing medical condition did have a brain slightly smaller than those healthy individuals.

Full post as published by Traumatic Brain Injury Law Blog on September 16, 2009 (boomark / email).