Morphometric and volumetric study of caudate and putamen nuclei in normal individuals by MRI: Effect of normal aging, gender and hemispheric differences

Background: The aim of this study was to determine age, gender, and hemispheric differences in the volume of the human neostriatum (striatum) nucleus in healthy humans. Material/Methods: This study was performed on 120 normal human subjects (60 males, 60 females, right-handed) 15-65 years old, divided into two groups: young (<40 yrs) and old (=�40 yrs). Sectional brain images were obtained via magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), analyzed and processed using the Image-J software, and the striatum volume was calculated using the Cavalieri's principle, retrospectively. Results: The analyses revealed bilateral age-related shrinkage of the putamen in both genders and the putamen and caudate nucleus were significantly smaller in older than in younger subjects (P-value <0.001). The age-related shrinkage of the caudate and putamen nucleus in men and women was about 5, 5 and 4, 4, respectively, and there were statistically significant volume differences between males and females (P-value