AI Framework Maps How Different Parts of the Brain Age, Study Finds

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), demonstrate how regional brain aging patterns correlate with cognitive function throughout a person's lifespan.

Researchers led by Andrei Irimia, Associate Professor at the University of Southern California's School of Gerontology, have developed an artificial intelligence (AI)-based framework that generates detailed maps showing how different parts of the brain age. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), demonstrate how regional brain aging patterns correlate with cognitive function throughout a person's lifespan.

Unlike conventional brain-age estimation methods that produce a single age estimate for the entire brain, the new model generates localized maps showing how old individual brain regions appear compared with those of healthy people of the same chronological age. According to the researchers, this approach provides a more detailed understanding of typical aging and neurodegeneration.

"Not all brain regions age at the same rate. Some areas appear to be more resilient, while others are more vulnerable to ageing and disease. By measuring local brain ageing, we can identify where the brain is ageing faster than expected and how those changes relate to cognitive function," said Andrei Irimia, lead researcher and Associate Professor at the University of Southern California's School of Gerontology.

The researchers trained a deep-learning neural network using MRI scans from 14,748 cognitively normal adults aged 19 to 100 years from six public datasets, including the UK Biobank and the Human Connectome Project. The model was then tested using more than 1,900 MRI scans from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, including cognitively normal individuals, people with mild cognitive impairment, and patients with Alzheimer's disease.

The study found that the frontal and temporal lobes, which are associated with decision-making, memory, and higher cognitive functions, appeared biologically older than the parietal and occipital regions. Researchers also observed that the brain's right hemisphere tended to show slightly more advanced aging than the left, regardless of whether participants were right- or left-handed.

The researchers reported that differences in local brain aging became more pronounced as cognitive impairment progressed. Participants with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease showed significantly older local brain ages in regions including the hippocampus, amygdala, and other deep brain structures associated with memory and cognitive processing. The study also found that older local brain age was associated with poorer performance on cognitive assessments, with the strongest relationship observed among people with Alzheimer's disease.

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