Norms for cerebellum in Sudanese –A morphometric MRI based study

Abstract

The cerebellum is one of the most important structures in the posterior cranial fossa. The objectives of this study were to characterize the cerebellum and cerebrum by measuring the cerebellum height , vermians AP width in the mid-sagittal plane , the maximum cerebellar hemispheric width in axial plane and the cerebrum length and width, using MRI ,as well as to determine the impact of age and gender on the measurements in healthy Sudanese adults. The data were obtained from MR multi planes images done for 100 healthy Sudanese subjects, their mean age was 42.36±17.87 years old (Min=14.00, Max=80.00 years). Norms for Sudanese cerebellum and cerebrum measurements were established. The cereberum length was affected by age significantly at p=0.004; however no age related differences were noticed in the cerebellum measurements. The degree of the reduction in the cerebellar measurements is mild and unlikely to be significant. Smaller measurements of cerebellum and cerebrum were noticed in females than males, where the cerebellum hemisphere maximum width and cerebrum length were affected significantly by gender, while the cerebellum height and AP vermian width were not significantly correlated with gender. The results of this study provide a valuable addition to the normative database of the cerebellar and cerebrum anatomy for Sudanese .These data are an attempt to support the norms of the cerebellum data measured in axial and saggital images. It should be taken into account in functional imaging studies of aging, when the cerebellum is considered as an appropriate structure for reference and normalization for Sudanese.