@article {aCumplido-Mayoral22, title = {Biological Brain Age Prediction Using Machine Learning on Structural Neuroimaging Data: Multi-Cohort Validation Against Biomarkers of Alzheimer{\textquoteright}s Disease and Neurodegeneration stratified by sex}, journal = {eLife}, volume = {12}, year = {2023}, month = {04/2023}, abstract = {

Brain-age can be inferred from structural neuroimaging and compared to chronological age (brain-age delta) as a marker of biological brain aging. Accelerated aging has been found in neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer9s disease (AD), but its validation against markers of neurodegeneration and AD is lacking. Here, imaging-derived measures from the UK Biobank dataset (N=22,661) were used to predict brain-age in 2,314 cognitively unimpaired (CU) individuals at higher risk of AD and mild cognitive impaired (MCI) patients from four independent cohorts with available biomarker data: ALFA+, ADNI, EPAD and OASIS. Brain-age delta was associated with abnormal amyloid-β, more advanced stages (AT) of AD pathology and APOE-ε4 status. Brain-age delta was positively associated with plasma neurofilament light, a marker of neurodegeneration, and sex differences in the brain effects of this marker were found. These results validate brain-age delta as a non-invasive marker of biological brain aging related to markers of AD and neurodegeneration.

}, issn = {2050-084X}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.81067}, author = {Irene Cumplido-Mayoral and Marina Garc{\'\i}a-Prat and Gregory Operto and Carles Falcon and Mahnaz Shekari and Raffaele Cacciaglia and Marta Mila-Aloma and Luigi Lorenzini and Carolina Minguillon and Jose Luis Molinuevo and Marc Suarez-Calvet and Ver{\'o}nica Vilaplana and Juan Domingo Gispert} }