Larger cerebellum linked to better thinking scores in later life
A cross-sectional study of 47,144 adults also found that associations between age and cerebellar structure varied by region.
47,000 adults, cohort study, independent replication
Limit: Individual brain changes over time were not measured
Stake: Authors hold shares in Centile Biosciences and sit on its board.
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
Researchers analyzed brain scans and thinking tests from 47,144 adults in a cross-sectional observational study. Three cohorts included 708 adults aged 36–100, 45,013 aged 44–81 and 1,423 aged 56–95. They included women and men and people with and without cognitive impairment.
The relationship between age and the structure of the cerebellum, a part of the brain, varied across regions. Some areas involved in movement or thinking showed stronger age associations than others. Greater cerebellar volume was linked to higher cognitive scores with increasing age. Among people with Alzheimer’s disease, volume was linked to cognition at lower levels of amyloid, a protein that accumulates in the brain. This link was especially evident in those carrying two copies of APOE-ε4, a genetic variant associated with Alzheimer’s risk.
Why it matters
The authors propose that the cerebellum provides brain reserve—capacity to maintain function despite aging—that helps sustain cognition until disease-related changes become widespread.
Caveats
The main analyses compared people of different ages, so they cannot establish how individuals’ brains changed or whether cerebellar structure preserved cognition. The three main cohorts did not include people younger than 36.
The paper
Cerebellar aging is spatially heterogeneous and supports cognitive resilience in later life
Princeton University
Nature Neuroscience, Jun 10, 2026, Open access
doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02289-xPubMed 42271047
Corrected, Jun 23, 2026
