Individual variations in “brain age” relate to early life factors more than to longitudinal brain change

Preprint

Brain age is a widely used index for quantifying individuals’ brain health as deviation from a normative brain aging trajectory. Higher than expected brain age is thought partially to reflect above-average rate of brain aging. We explicitly tested this assumption in two large datasets and found no association between cross-sectional brain age and steeper brain decline measured longitudinally. Rather, brain age in adulthood was associated with early-life influences indexed by birth weight and polygenic scores. The results call for nuanced interpretations of cross-sectional indices of the aging brain and question their validity as markers of ongoing within-person changes of the aging brain. Longitudinal imaging data should be preferred whenever the goal is to understand individual change trajectories of brain and cognition in aging.

Authors: Vidal-Piñeiro, D; Wang, Y; Krogsrud, SK; Amlien, IK; Baaré, WFC

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Not peer reviewed
• Preprint server: bioRxiv
• Publication date: 2021-04-12
• DOI: 10.1101/2021.02.08.428915
• EISSN: 2692-8205
• Language: English
• Keywords: brain age delta; aging; T1w; PAD; brain decline; brain age gap; BrainAGE; neuroimaging