ArticleThe journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences2021
The Indigenous South American Tsimane Exhibit Relatively Modest Decrease in Brain Volume With Age Despite High Systemic Inflammation.
Article in The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Segmentation and morphometry of intracranial internal carotid artery calcification in relation to brain atrophy.Neuroradiology · 2026Article
- Women's reproductive factors predict local brain aging profiles mapped using deep neural networks.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Systematic Review on the Association Between Sleep and the Risk of Alzheimer's Disease: An Evolutionary Perspective.Evolutionary applications · 2026Review
- Advancing brain health equity with Indigenous peoples: A critical imperative.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Review
- Oxytocin varies across the life course in a sex-specific way in a human subsistence population.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Physical activity mediates age differences in cognition among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2025Article
- Childhood skeletal lesions common in prehistory are present in living forager-farmers and predict adult markers of immune function.Science advances · 2025Article
- History of Senile Dementia from the Antiquity to the Beginning of the Modern Age.Current Alzheimer research · 2025Review
- An evolutionary medicine and life history perspective on aging and disease: Trade-offs, hyperfunction, and mismatch.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2025Review
- Poor Oral Health Is Associated With Inflammation, Aortic Valve Calcification, and Brain Volume Among Forager-Farmers.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2024Article
- Brain volume, energy balance, and cardiovascular health in two nonindustrial South American populations.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Prevalence of dementia and mild cognitive impairment in indigenous Bolivian forager-horticulturalists.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2023Article
- Uncovering mechanisms of brain inflammation in Alzheimer's disease with APOE4: Application of single cell-type lipidomics.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2022Review
- Feeding Our Microbiota: Stimulation of the Immune/Semiochemical System and the Potential Amelioration of Non-Communicable Diseases.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
29 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Brain atrophy is correlated with risk of cognitive impairment, functional decline, and dementia. Despite a high infectious disease burden, Tsimane forager-horticulturists of Bolivia have the lowest prevalence of coronary atherosclerosis of any studied population and present few cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors despite a high burden of infections and therefore inflammation. This study (a) examines the statistical association between brain volume (BV) and age for Tsimane and (b) compares this association to that of 3 industrialized populations in the United States and Europe. This cohort-based panel study enrolled 746 participants aged 40-94 (396 males), from whom computed tomography (CT) head scans were acquired. BV and intracranial volume (ICV) were calculated from automatic head CT segmentations. The linear regression coefficient estimate β^T of the Tsimane (T), describing the relationship between age (predictor) and BV (response, as a percentage of ICV), was calculated for the pooled sample (including both sexes) and for each sex. β^T was compared to the corresponding regression coefficient estimate β^R of samples from the industrialized reference (R) countries. For all comparisons, the null hypothesis β T = β R was rejected both for the combined samples of males and females, as well as separately for each sex. Our results indicate that the Tsimane exhibit a significantly slower decrease in BV with age than populations in the United States and Europe. Such reduced rates of BV decrease, together with a subsistence lifestyle and low CVD risk, may protect brain health despite considerable chronic inflammation related to infectious burden.
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