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

  1. D. Vidal-Piñeiro
  2. Y. Wang
  3. SK. Krogsrud
  4. IK. Amlien
  5. WFC. Baaré
  6. D. Bartrés-Faz
  7. L. Bertram
  8. A.M. Brandmaier
  9. CA. Drevon
  10. S. Düzel
  11. KP. Ebmeier
  12. RN Henson
  13. C. Junque
  14. RA Kievit
  15. S. Kühn
  16. E. Leonardsen
  17. U. Lindenberger
  18. KS. Madsen
  19. F. Magnussen
  20. AM. Mowinckel
  21. L. Nyberg
  22. JM. Roe
  23. B. Segura
  24. SM. Smith
  25. Ø. Sørensen
  26. S. Suri
  27. R. Westerhausen
  28. A. Zalesky
  29. E. Zsoldos
  30. the Australian Imaging Biomarkers and Lifestyle flagship study of ageing
  31. KB. Walhovd
  32. AM. Fjell
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Abstract

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.

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