Researchers have identified 13 proteins in the blood that predict how quickly or slowly a person’s brain ages compared with the rest of their body.
Their study1, published in Nature Aging on 9 December, used a machine-learning model to estimate ‘brain ages’ from scans of more than 10,000 people. The authors then analysed thousands of scans alongside blood samples and found eight proteins that were associated with fast brain ageing, and five linked to slower brain ageing.
Dementia risk linked to blood-protein imbalance in middle age
“Previous studies mainly focused on the association between the proteins and the chronological age, that means the real age of the individual,” says study co-author Wei-Shi Liu, a neurologist at Fudan University in Shanghai, China.
However, studying biomarkers linked to a person’s brain age could help scientists to identify molecules to target in future treatments for age-related brain diseases. “These proteins are all promising therapeutic targets for brain disorders, but it may take a long time to validate them,” says Liu.
Brain age gap
Using machine learning to analyse brain-imaging data from 10,949 people, Liu and his colleagues created a model to calculate a person’s brain age, on the basis of features such as the brain’s volume, surface area and distribution of white matter.
Nature.