A measure of how old a person's brain appears on brain scans compared with their actual age might be a potential predictor of who is more likely to develop dementia over the years, reports a new study published in Neurology.
Researchers in the Netherlands gathered medical data from patients enrolled in a national dementia or subjective cognitive impairment cohort between 2002 and 2024.
Using advanced AI-based computer algorithms, they determined how old a person's brain appeared on MRI scans and then compared that estimate with the person's actual age.
They tested whether this mismatch, which they called brain-predicted age difference (brain-PAD), could help identify people with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) who were more likely to develop dementia, and whether it added anything beyond what visual rating scales could already tell them.
A structurally older brain proved to be a real warning sign.
For every year a patient's brain appeared older than their actual age, their risk of dementia increased by 6%.
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