It is clear: we do not all age at the same time or in the same way, and our biological age does not have to coincide exactly with chronological age. For this reason, one of the most promising fields of medicine is that which explores new methods to predict the risk that a person has of developing diseases associated with aging early : epigenetic markers, studies on lifestyle habits, etc.
Along these lines, a team of researchers from the University of Edinburgh and Imperial College London is developing a technique that combines magnetic resonance imaging of the brain with multivariate statistical models to predict ‘brain age’ based on the volume of this organ. .
When they tested the technique on a group of Scottish volunteers, the scientists found that the greater the difference between a person’s brain age and their actual age , the greater the risk of poor physical and mental health, and even suffering a early death . In other words, those with brains, say, older than might be expected from their chronological age, fared worse on standard physical measures used to assess healthy aging . Additionally, volunteers with ‘older brains’ were more likely to die before age 80, with an average discrepancy of eight years for men and two for women.
“Our approach is based on the discrepancy between the actual age and the one we predict using a brain atrophy marker. If we observe that the brain is older than its chronological age would expect, we have reason to suspect that something negative could be happening, “explains James Cole, lead author of the study.
Towards a personalized diagnosis
The results of the work have been published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry and, although they are very preliminary, they lay the foundations for developing an individual diagnostic technique that allows a person to know the aging state of their brain.
If these initial findings could be applied to a standard screening program, the technique could be useful in informing healthcare professionals when a patient has a brain age above or below the line , in the same way that they are used today. other indicators such as the body mass index . But to do this, it is first necessary to reduce the margin of error that this technique still has.
“The ideal would be to achieve the calculation with sufficient precision to be able to implement it at the individual level,” says Cole. “In this way, a person could go to the doctor to have a brain scan and he, for example, could say: ‘Your brain is ten years older than it should be’, and advise them on changes in their lifestyle, or the start of treatment “.
