ArticleNature communications2025
Vulnerability to memory decline in aging revealed by a mega-analysis of structural brain change.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Regional Brain Volume Variation Across Adulthood: A Cross-Sectional MRI Analysis of Age, Sex, and Hemispheric Asymmetry.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Elevated BrainAGE precedes cognitive impairment and improves prediction of future cognitive decline.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Age-related differences in spatial memory occur alongside reduced visual fMRI BOLD but preserved viewpoint-specific scene representations.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Dissociable contributions of cortical thickness and surface area to cognitive ageing: evidence from multiple longitudinal cohorts.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Vulnerability to memory decline in aging revealed by a mega-analysis of structural brain change.Nature communications · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
- Update of
Authors and funding
24 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Brain atrophy is a key factor behind episodic memory loss in aging, but the nature and ubiquity of this relationship remains poorly understood. This study leverages 13 longitudinal datasets, including 3737 cognitively healthy adults (10,343 MRI scans; 13,460 memory assessments), to determine whether brain change-memory change associations are more pronounced with age and genetic risk for Alzheimer's Disease. Both factors are associated with accelerated brain decline, yet it remains unclear whether memory loss is exacerbated beyond what atrophy alone would predict. Additionally, we assess whether memory decline aligns with a global pattern of atrophy or stems from distinct regional contributions. Our mega-analysis reveals a nonlinear relationship between memory decline and brain atrophy, primarily affecting individuals with above-average brain structural decline. The associations are stronger in the hippocampus but also spread across diverse cortical and subcortical regions. The associations strengthen with age, reaching moderate associations in participants in their eighties. While APOE ε4 carriers exhibit steeper brain and memory loss, genetic risk has no effect on the change-change associations. These findings support the presence of common biological macrostructural substrates underlying memory function in older age which are vulnerable to multiple age-related factors, even in the absence of overt pathological changes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.