- Irimia, Andrei;
- Chaudhari, Nikhil N;
- Robles, David J;
- Rostowsky, Kenneth A;
- Maher, Alexander S;
- Chowdhury, Nahian F;
- Calvillo, Maria;
- Ngo, Van;
- Gatz, Margaret;
- Mack, Wendy J;
- Law, E Meng;
- Sutherland, M Linda;
- Sutherland, James D;
- Rowan, Christopher J;
- Wann, L Samuel;
- Allam, Adel H;
- Thompson, Randall C;
- Michalik, David E;
- Cummings, Daniel K;
- Seabright, Edmond;
- Alami, Sarah;
- Garcia, Angela R;
- Hooper, Paul L;
- Stieglitz, Jonathan;
- Trumble, Benjamin C;
- Gurven, Michael D;
- Thomas, Gregory S;
- Finch, Caleb E;
- Kaplan, Hillard
- Editor(s): Le Couteur, David
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.