ArticleImaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)2024
GABA levels decline with age: A longitudinal study.
Article in Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.), 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Developmental and aging trajectories of 40-Hz auditory steady-state responses: A systematic review across the human lifespan.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Frequency-Dependent Whole-Brain Reconfiguration Following Left DLPFC rTMS in Older Adults: A 106-Channel fNIRS Study.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Trial
- Crosstalk Between Gut Microbiota, Epigenome, and Neurotransmitters in Health and Disease.Cells · 2026Review
- A Comparison of Positive and Negative Allosteric Modulators of α5-Containing GABABiological psychiatry · 2026Review
- Parallel Age-Related Cochlear Neural Degeneration and Cortical Gain Adaptation in Normal-Hearing Humans.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Oral Supplementation With a Bovine Thymus Extract Reduces Neuronal Excitability in Aging Mice.FASEB bioAdvances · 2026Article
- The Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon: Cognitive, Neural, and Neurochemical Perspectives.Biomedicines · 2026Review
- The rise and deceleration of neuronal excitability in aging and Alzheimer's disease: Mechanisms, implications, and therapeutic targets.Ageing research reviews · 2026Review
- Comparative profiling of amino acids in plasma and serum across children and adults using LC-MS/MS and its implications for precision nutrition.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- A transcriptomic resource for glial GABA-associated ASH neuronal aging and candidate pathways.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2026Article
- Article
- Relationships between GABA + and Glx concentrations with age and inhibition in healthy older adults.Brain structure & function · 2025Article
- Does Dysregulation Of The Indirect Pathway Contribute To The Pathophysiology Of Catatonia Through Neurotransmitter Imbalance?Clinical neuropsychiatry · 2025Article
- Parallel Gene Expression Changes in Ventral Midbrain Dopamine and GABA Neurons during Normal Aging.eNeuro · 2025Article
- Anti-Obesity Effects of LB-GABA.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- "Surviving and Thriving": evidence for cortical GABA stabilization in cognitively-intact oldest-old adults.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- The impact of GABA and GABAergic pathway in polycystic ovary syndrome: a systematic review.Obstetrics & gynecology science · 2025Article
- Review
- Reduced Neural Distinctiveness of Speech Representations in the Middle-Aged Brain.Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Enhancing sleep quality in synucleinopathies through physical exercise.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
One factor that might contribute to functional deterioration in healthy older adults is a decline in the brain's major inhibitory neurotransmitter, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Previous studies have reported mixed results regarding whether GABA declines in healthy aging. These previous studies were cross-sectional and therefore cannot provide insight into GABA changes over time within aging individuals. Furthermore, aging is associated with gray and white matter atrophy that may confound age-related differences in GABA. In the present study, we utilized a repeated-measures, longitudinal design and MR spectroscopy to measure GABA levels in bilateral auditory, sensorimotor, and ventrovisual voxels of interest (VOI) in 30 healthy older adults at two time points a few years apart. Furthermore, we applied two of the most common tissue correction strategies to control for the effects of tissue composition on GABA estimates. Results from mixed-effects models showed that longitudinal change in age is a significant predictor of tissue-corrected longitudinal change in GABA levels: as age increases, GABA declines. In contrast, there was no cross-sectional effect of age on GABA in our sample (e.g., the oldest old did not have lower GABA levels than the youngest old). In conclusion, results from this study provide support for within-person, age-related declines in GABA over time, even after controlling for tissue composition.
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Registered trials
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