Older macaques had more spaces around brain vessels on scans
Brain scans of 94 rhesus macaques aged 5–28 linked older age to a greater count and total volume of spaces surrounding blood vessels.
Limit: Microscopy checked only one structure in one macaque
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
In a cross-sectional observational study, researchers analyzed brain scans from 94 rhesus macaques—65 females and 29 males—aged 5–28 years. They used magnetic resonance imaging to count perivascular spaces, the spaces around blood vessels, and measure their total volume.
Older animals had more scan-visible spaces and a greater total space volume. The spaces’ distribution resembled that seen in humans. The researchers found no significant differences between sexes. In a preliminary follow-up, microscopy of brain tissue from one 26-year-old female confirmed that one tubular structure detected on a scan was a perivascular space.
Why it matters
The authors suggest rhesus macaques could provide a model for investigating how the function of spaces around blood vessels relates to brain vulnerability with age.
Caveats
The cross-sectional comparisons did not track changes within individual animals. Microscopy checked only one structure in one macaque, and the study did not establish how these spaces relate to brain disease.
The paper
Aging macaques bridge the translational gap in perivascular space biology
Oregon National Primate Research Center
Scientific Reports, Jun 15, 2026, Open access
