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White matter microstructure evolves across the lifespan due to maturation and degeneration. Recently, MR imaging in humans uncovered region- and sex-specific trajectories of microstructural integrity decline, suggesting prolonged neoteny in the female brain. Here, using advanced diffusion-weighted MRI, we characterize the contribution of different cell-specific white matter biomarkers in a longitudinal rat model of healthy ageing, from puberty to early senescence. Our results validate the use of a rat model of healthy ageing for dissecting longitudinal brain ageing patterns, replicate the sexual dimorphism found in humans and points at myelin as the neurobiological substrate driving the observed sex difference.
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Cerdá et al. (2024) studied this question.
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