What is cerebral atrophy? Cerebral atrophy—the loss of nerve cells (neurons) and the connections that help them communicate in the brain's tissues—occurs in many disorders that affect the brain, such as stroke, Alzheimer's, disease, traumatic brain injury, multiple sclerosis, or infections.
People with brain atrophy, also called cerebral atrophy, lose brain cells (neurons), and connections between their brain cells and brain volume often decreases. This loss can lead to problems with thinking, memory and performing everyday tasks. The greater the loss, the more impairment someone has.
Cerebral atrophy occurs naturally in all humans. But cell loss can be accelerated by a variety of causes, including injury, infection, and medical conditions such as dementia, stroke, and Huntington's disease. These latter cases sometimes culminate in more severe brain damage and are potentially life-threatening.
Some degree of atrophy and subsequent brain shrinkage is common with old age, even in people who are cognitively healthy. However, this atrophy is accelerated in people with mild cognitive impairment and even faster in those who ultimately progress from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease.
As we age our brains shrink in volume, particularly in the frontal cortex. As our vasculature ages and our blood pressure rises the possibility of stroke and ischaemia increases and our white matter develops lesions. Memory decline also occurs with ageing and brain activation becomes more bilateral for memory tasks.
Dementia and the brain
The most common types of dementia each start with shrinkage of brain tissue that may be restricted to certain parts of the brain.
Mild cases of brain atrophy may have little effect on daily functioning. However, brain atrophy can sometimes lead to symptoms such as seizures, aphasia, and dementia. Severe damage can be life threatening.
Some areas shrink more and faster than others, and brain shrinkage is likely to get more severe as you get older. While there is no way to stop aging, you can help support your brain health by staying active, eating healthy, and talking with your doctor about any challenges or concerns.
It's not possible to reverse brain atrophy after it has occurred. However, preventing brain damage, especially by preventing a stroke, may reduce the amount of atrophy that you develop over time. Some researchers suggest that healthy lifestyle strategies could minimize the atrophy that's normally associated with aging.
Depending on the disease or disorder causing the cerebral atrophy, symptoms can include: Dementia (the loss of the ability to think, reason, or remember to the extent that it interferes with a person's daily life and activities) Disorientation. Seizures.
Calcium channel blockers are commonly given for high blood pressure, and are linked to brain shrinkage as well.
Luckily, the plasticity of the brain allows it to mold, change, and rebuild damaged areas as you practice new behaviors. So implementing healthy stress-relieving techniques can train your brain to handle stress more effectively and decrease the likelihood of ill effects from stress in the future.
But studies show that long-term stress can actually prematurely shrink your brain—and lead to memory loss. “Cortisol is released when we're stressed. It creates our fight-or-flight response and it's a major player in controlling how the brain grows,” says Omar Danoun, M.D., a neurologist at Henry Ford Health.
Prolonged dehydration causes brain cells to shrink in size and mass, a condition common in many elderly who have been dehydrated for years. Lack of mental clarity, sometimes referred to as “brain fog.”
There is now ample evidence that the Mediterranean diet is beneficial for brain health. For a brain-healthy diet, incorporate more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, and nuts, while limiting processed or red meat.
Regular aerobic exercise (AE) can stop and even reverse brain atrophy. One year of moderate AE has been shown to increase hippocampal volume and improve memory in healthy older adults (1).
There's growing evidence that several parts of the brain shrink in people with depression. Specifically, these areas lose gray matter volume (GMV). That's tissue with a lot of brain cells. GMV loss seems to be higher in people who have regular or ongoing depression with serious symptoms.
Indeed, whereas among older adults smaller gross brain volume has been linked to decline in fluid intelligence (Rabbitt et al., 2008), variations in prefrontal volume are related to age differences in fluid reasoning and in more specific cognitive functions such as strategic control of episodic memory (Euston, Gruber, ...
Chronic alcoholism is often associated with brain shrinkage or atrophy. During recent years, it has been demonstrated that this shrinkage is, at least in part, reversible when abstinence is maintained.
The brain typically shrinks to some degree in healthy aging but, surprisingly, does not lose neurons in large numbers. In Alzheimer's disease, however, damage is widespread, as many neurons stop functioning, lose connections with other neurons, and die.
And previous studies of human brains have suggested that these brain regions, which include the frontal lobe and the hippocampus, are especially prone to shrinkage with age.
Frontotemporal dementia is an umbrella term for a group of brain disorders that primarily affect the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. These areas of the brain are generally associated with personality, behavior and language. In frontotemporal dementia, portions of these lobes shrink (atrophy).