Abstract
Now we confront a super aging society in Japan. In the situation, it is important to preserve our cognitive function for entire life by preventing us from pathological brain aging. To perform the aim, we have built a large brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) database from around 3000 subjects aged from five to 80 in order to reveal how brain develops and ages with not only cross-sectional but longitudinal designs. We have also collected several cognitive functions, lifestyle such as eating and sleeping habits, and genetic data. Using the database, we have revealed normal brain development and aging, and also have revealed what factors affect brain development and aging. In performing these analyses, longitudinal analysis is very important, for we can reduce the influences of inter-individual variability of several factors such as differences of brain shapes. These findings help understanding the mechanism of brain development and aging as well as performing differential diagnosis or diagnosis at an early stage of several diseases/disorders such as autism and Alzheimer's disease.
