Age Shrinks Male Brains Faster Than Those of Females, Study Finds

Researchers said Wednesday they have discovered evidence that the male human brain shrinks faster with age than the female brain.

The study by researchers at Henry Ford Hospital, using magnetic resonance images, showed that the shrinkage was most pronounced in the frontal and temporal lobes, which control thinking, planning and memory.

“My wife says it’s no surprise to her,” said Dr. C. Edward Coffey, the chairman of the hospital’s psychiatry department who led the study. The results were published in the February issue of Archives of Neurology.

Between the ages of 65 and 95, men experience an average 30% increase in cerebrospinal fluid around the outside of the brain, an indication of brain shrinkage. Women, over the same ages, experience a 1% increase in fluid.

Coffey said men and women combined average a loss of about 2.5% of their brain mass per decade, starting in young adulthood.

“We knew that men and women didn’t age in the same way,” Coffey said. “Women have a greater ability to hold onto verbal memory as they age, while men do better in tests of visual-spatial memory.”

Coffey said the greater brain shrinkage in men may help explain some of those differences and other behavioral changes, which will be the subject of future research.

But the greater shrinkage of the male brain may not be all bad news for men, he added. Although women experience less shrinkage, they are more prone to Alzheimer’s disease than men are, Coffey said, which could be an indication that the male brain is more tolerant of certain changes that come with age.

All of the 330 men and women who participated in the study were healthy people with no indications of severe mental impairment or dementia.