Cross-sectional brain age assessments are limited in predicting future brain change

Abstract

The concept of brain age (BA) describes an integrative imaging marker of brain health, often suggested to reflect ageing processes. However, the degree to which cross-sectional MRI features, including BA, reflect past, ongoing and future brain changes across different tissue types from macro-to microstructure remains controversial. Multimodal imaging data of39, 325UK Biobank participants, aged44−82years at baseline and2, 520follow-ups within1.12−6.90years, provide insufficient evidence that BA reflects the rate of brain ageing.