Men's brains age faster than women's: Study finds

A new study focused on determining whether sex differences in healthy brain aging could explain the higher prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in women and found they are unlikely to do so.

The study findings were published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

As per the statistics of the WHO, about 57 million people had dementia globally, and every year, nearly 10 million new cases are reported.

A striking gender gap exists globally; Alzheimer’s disease (AD) affects women nearly twice as often as men.

At age 45, a woman’s lifetime risk is 1 in 5, versus 1 in 10 for men.

For years, scientists have been confused by this gap, questioning whether differences in how men’s and women’s brains age might hold the answer.

But the study published in the PNAS indicates this long-held assumption might be incorrect.

Researchers analyzed over 12,000 brain scans from nearly 5,000 healthy individuals aged 17 to 95 and found that men’s brains age faster in key areas, including those linked to memory, movement, and visual processing, which include:

• The postcentral cortex (which processes touch and pain), which shrank twice as fast in men (2.0% per year) compared to women (1.2%).
• The brain's outer layer (cortex), particularly in areas linked to memory and visual processing.
• Subcortical structures are crucial for movement and coordination.

The study results indicate that sex differences in age-related brain decline are unlikely to contribute to the higher Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis prevalence in women.