To investigate the association between brain age difference and progression to dementia in patients with subjective cognitive decline or mild cognitive impairment.
Approach:
Study Design: A retrospective cohort study involving 799 patients from the Amsterdam Dementia Cohort and SCIENCe project.
Participants: 412 patients with subjective cognitive decline and 387 with mild cognitive impairment.
Brain Age Estimation: Brain age was estimated using MRI data analyzed by BrainageR and cNeuro.
Analysis Method: Cox proportional hazards models were used, adjusted for various factors including age, sex, and MRI ratings.
Key Findings:
29% of patients progressed to dementia during a median follow-up of 3.2 years.
Each additional year of brain-PAD was associated with a 6% higher likelihood of progression after adjustment.
In patients with subjective cognitive decline, each additional year of brain-PAD was associated with a 9% higher hazard of progression.
Brain-PAD improved model fit, increasing the C-index from 0.77 to 0.79 in subjective cognitive decline patients.
Interpretation:
Lead study author Stefan De Vries noted that brain-PAD captures variance not explained by traditional visual rating scales, indicating its potential utility in assessing dementia risk.
