{"id":39382,"date":"2025-07-05T00:12:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T00:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/39382\/"},"modified":"2025-07-05T00:12:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T00:12:10","slug":"novel-brain-scan-may-predict-age-related-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/39382\/","title":{"rendered":"Novel brain scan may predict age-related disease"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/fingers-brain-MRIs-1296x728-header-1024x575.jpg\" alt=\"finger pointing at brain scans on screen\" class=\"css-1jytyml\"\/><a class=\"icon-hl-pinterest css-11oz8gb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" data-event=\"Any Page|Image Pinterest Click|Icon Clicked\" data-element-event=\"OPEN|CONTENTBLOCK|Any Page|Article Body|BUTTON|Image Widget Pinterest Click|\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/pin\/create\/button\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.medicalnewstoday.com%2Farticles%2Fcould-a-single-brain-scan-predict-the-risk-of-age-related-conditions-like-dementia&amp;media=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.post.rvohealth.io%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F3%2F2025%2F07%2Ffingers-brain-MRIs-1296x728-header-1024x575.jpg&amp;description=Dementia%3A%20Novel%20brain%20scan%20may%20predict%20age-related%20disease\" title=\"Share on Pinterest\" data-pin-custom=\"true\" data-share-url=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/fingers-brain-MRIs-1296x728-header-1024x575.jpg\">Share on Pinterest<\/a>An experimental brain scan may be able to accurately predict a person\u2019s risk of age-related disorders. Image credit: Rafe Swan\/Getty Images.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>People age at different rates, partly due to genetics but largely because of lifestyle.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>A person\u2019s rate of aging can indicate how likely they are to develop age-related disorders, such as dementia.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Now, researchers have developed a method based on a single brain scan in middle age that could predict how fast a person is likely to age.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>They suggest that their method, which can predict the aging rate of both brain and body, may detect who should implement lifestyle changes to reduce their risk of age-related illness.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Some people appear to age more slowly than others. This is partly due to genetics, which <a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC4822264\/#:~:text=Abstract,individual%20chance%20to%20attain%20longevity.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"content-link css-90fpmc\">studies<\/a> suggest accounts for around 25% of the variation in longevity but is largely due to lifestyle and the environment.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.medicalnewstoday.com\/articles\/8-heart-healthy-habits-slow-biological-aging-by-6-years-aha-study\" class=\"content-link css-90fpmc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Modifications in lifestyle<\/a>, such as following a healthy diet, exercising regularly, getting adequate sleep, not smoking, and not drinking alcohol to excess, can help slow a person\u2019s rate of aging and delay or prevent age-related disorders.<\/p>\n<p>A person\u2019s rate of aging is often referred to as their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.medicalnewstoday.com\/articles\/chronological-aging#what-is-biological-aging\" class=\"content-link css-90fpmc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">biological age<\/a> \u2014 how old their cells are \u2014 which can vary greatly from their chronological age, or the number of years since their birth. Measuring this can be tricky.<\/p>\n<p>Now, a group of researchers from Duke, Harvard, and the University of Otago, New Zealand, have developed a method of predicting how fast a person will age, based on a single brain scan performed around the age of 45. <\/p>\n<p>In their study, which is published in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s43587-025-00897-z\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"content-link css-90fpmc\">Nature Aging<\/a>, the researchers suggest that the Dunedin Pace of Aging Calculated from NeuroImaging (DunedinPACNI) could help researchers determine how aging affects health, and help them evaluate the effectiveness of anti-aging strategies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe study developed and validated a new MRI-based biomarker called DunedinPACNI which shows not only a score for brain age, i.e. how old the brain looks, but also shows connections to cognitive decline and other health measures, allowing to perhaps predict how quickly a person ages and how their health will evolve later in life,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.urmc.rochester.edu\/people\/112359538-madalina-tivarus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"content-link css-90fpmc\">Madalina Tivarus<\/a>, PhD, associate professor of Imaging Sciences and Neuroscience at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester, not involved in the study, told Medical News Today.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe idea of using a routine MRI brain scan to do a \u2018aging check-up\u2019 is very interesting and exciting,\u201d Tivarus told us.<\/p>\n<p>This study builds on the Dunedin Study, <a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC8853656\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"content-link css-90fpmc\">previous research<\/a> conducted in the same cohort of participants. This study, which followed a group of 1,037 people born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1972\u2013\u201973, looked at age-related changes in gene methylation to create an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S1568163722001854?via=ihub\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"content-link css-90fpmc\">epigenetic clock<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In the Dunedin Study, researchers regularly tested participants\u2019 blood pressure, body mass index (BMI), glucose (blood sugar) and cholesterol levels, lung and kidney function, and even gum recession and tooth decay.<\/p>\n<p>Over almost 20 years, they used the overall pattern of change across these health markers to generate a score for how fast each person was aging.<\/p>\n<p>In the latest study, researchers used a single MRI scan of the brain performed when participants were aged 45, which they correlated with the Dunedin Study aging data. They then developed their DunedinPACNI to estimate rate of aging using only information from the MRI scan.<\/p>\n<p><strong>They found that their prediction accuracy was in line with more established epigenetic methods.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>People with faster DunedinPACNI scores had several indicators of more rapid aging, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>worse balance, slower gait, weaker lower and upper body strength, and poorer coordination<\/li>\n<li>self-reported worse health and more physical limitations <\/li>\n<li>poorer performance on cognitive function tests <\/li>\n<li>greater childhood-to-adulthood cognitive decline<\/li>\n<li>older physical appearance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/recognitionhealth.com\/team-member\/dr-emer-macsweeney\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"content-link css-90fpmc\">Emer MacSweeney<\/a>, MD, CEO and consultant Neuroradiologist at Re:Cognition Health, who was not involved in this research, highlighted how important brain imaging could be, telling MNT that:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow css-34gtoi\">\n<p>\u201cThe researchers observed that individuals with higher DunedinPACNI scores, indicating faster brain aging, were also more likely to experience health deterioration in other organ systems, such as cardiovascular and respiratory health. The fact that brain imaging can reflect systemic aging suggests the brain may serve as a biomarker for overall biological age, offering a non-invasive, accessible measure of aging processes throughout the body.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow css-34gtoi\">\n<p>\u201cThis study is exciting because it shows that MRI scans might be used not just to detect disease, but also to track how the brain is aging long before problems begin. However, it\u2019s still early days. While promising, DunedinPACNI still needs to be tested more widely in larger and more diverse populations across different ages, ethnicities, and health backgrounds. It did perform well across multiple large datasets, but more global validation is needed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The researchers compared the DunedinPACNI with measures of hippocampal and ventricular volume, which are commonly used MRI-based measures of brain aging, using UK Biobank and ADNI participants.<\/p>\n<p><strong>They found that faster DunedinPACNI was more consistently and strongly associated with poor cognition, poor health, frailty, and risk of dementia, disease and mortality than either of these measures.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Tivarus was impressed by the study structure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe study methodology has some important strengths such as it is using a robust, decades-long longitudinal dataset, uses sound statistical methods, and has been validated extensively using imaging data from other large studies,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n<p>However, she also pointed out that there were \u201csome limitations, such as the specific population data used to train the model (mostly European ancestry, from a specific geographical location), its performance in younger or pediatric populations is untested, [and] it infers dynamic processes from one static image (one MRI snapshot).\u201d <\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cWhile I don\u2019t think it is ready for clinical use, DunedinPACNI appears to be a promising imaging biomarker of biological aging,\u201d Tivarus told us.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Share on PinterestAn experimental brain scan may be able to accurately predict a person\u2019s risk of age-related disorders.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":39383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1081,632,815,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-39382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-aging","9":"tag-dementia","10":"tag-genetics","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114797736529028317","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}