Measuring the volume of temporal lobe in healthy Chinese adults of the Han nationality on the high-resolution MRI

Objective: To explore the morphological features of temporal lobe of healthy Chinese Han adults on the high-resolution MRI and provide morphological data of temporal lobe for the construction of database for Chinese Standard Brain. Methods: This is a clinical multi-center study. Three hundred healthy Chinese volunteers (male 150, and female 150) recruited from 15 hospitals were divided equally into five groups according to their age, i. e., 18-30 (Group A), 31-40 (Group B), 41-50 (Group C), 51 - 60(Group D), 61-70(Group E). All subjects were scanned using T 1WI 3D MPRAGE sequence and volumes of standardized temporal lobe were collected. The bilateral volumes of standardized temporal lobe were compared by variance analysis between male and female subjects and among five age groups. Results: The mean volumes of left and right temporal lobe were (97126±15703) mm 3 and (97 015±15 545) mm 3 respectively for men, and (95 123±14 564) mm 3 and (96 423±13407) mm 3 for women. The difference temporal lobe volume between male and female wasn't significant on the same side (F = 1.336, 0.127, P = 0.249, 0.722). The left temporal lobe volumes of Group A-E were (93873±13351), (95566±11964), (10 1890±14511), (93972±14050) and (95636±19864)mm 3 respectively, and those on the right side were (93409±10984), (98 158±16 392), (102079±15 112), (95 448±11 123) and (94658±16928) mm 3. There were significant differences among 5 groups between left and right temporal lobe volume(F = 2.940, 3.514, P = 0.021, 0.008). Further pairwise comparison revealed that left and right temporal lobe volume in Group C is higher than those of Group A and D(P<0.05), while there were no significant differences between the other groups (P>0.05). Conclusion: High-resolution MRI could offer detailed images and precise morphological data of temporal lobe, which provides morphological data of temporal lobe for the construction of database for Chinese Standard Brain. © 2010 by the Chinese Medical Association.