ArticleHuman brain mapping2021
Prediction of brain age and cognitive age: Quantifying brain and cognitive maintenance in aging.
Article in Human brain mapping, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 77 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
77 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Modifiable lifestyle factors and cognitive reserve: A systematic review of current evidence.Ageing research reviews · 2022Pooled it
- The effects of magnesium L-threonate (MagteinFrontiers in nutrition · 2025Trial
- Associations of physical fitness with brain structure, pathology and cognition in cognitively normal older adults.npj aging · 2026Article
- Lights for aging: Can photobiomodulation restore functionality in the cerebral networks of aged individuals?Neural regeneration research · 2026Article
- Aging beyond diagnosis: the MRI brain age gap across disorders.GeroScience · 2026Review
- A physically and mentally active lifestyle relates to younger brain and cognitive age.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Brain Age in Adult Patients With Early-Treated Phenylketonuria.Journal of inherited metabolic disease · 2026Article
- Synchrony between brain age and internalising and externalising symptoms across adolescence.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Effect of increasing cognitive activity participation via calligraphy practice on salient network and central executive network in older adults with subjective cognitive decline: a secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2026Article
- Distinct long-term neurological trajectories and their predictors in cerebral venous sinus thrombosis: a latent class mixed model analysis.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- Brain activity as a candidate biomarker for personalised caffeine treatment in premature neonates.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2026Article
- Brain Age as a Biomarker in Alzheimer's Disease: Narrative Perspectives on Imaging, Biomarkers, Machine Learning, and Intervention Potential.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Article
- Cognitive Age Delta as a Marker of Healthy and Pathological Cognitive Aging: The Role of Lifestyle, Cognitive Reserve, and Vascular Risk.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Dynamic Brain Age Modeling Identifies Network-Specific Cognitive Deficits in Schizophrenia.Research square · 2025Article
- Neuroanatomical features reveal accelerated brain age in alcohol use disorder.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Brain-age models with lower age prediction accuracy have higher sensitivity for disease detection.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Current challenges and future directions for brain age prediction in children and adolescents.Nature communications · 2025Review
- Functional Brain Age Acceleration from Dynamic and Static Connectivity Predicts Working Memory and Attention Deficits in Schizophrenia.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- A Genome-wide study on the genetic and causal effects of smoking in neurodegeneration.Journal of translational medicine · 2025Article
17 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The concept of brain maintenance refers to the preservation of brain integrity in older age, while cognitive reserve refers to the capacity to maintain cognition in the presence of neurodegeneration or aging-related brain changes. While both mechanisms are thought to contribute to individual differences in cognitive function among older adults, there is currently no "gold standard" for measuring these constructs. Using machine-learning methods, we estimated brain and cognitive age based on deviations from normative aging patterns in the Whitehall II MRI substudy cohort (N = 537, age range = 60.34-82.76), and tested the degree of correspondence between these constructs, as well as their associations with premorbid IQ, education, and lifestyle trajectories. In line with established literature highlighting IQ as a proxy for cognitive reserve, higher premorbid IQ was linked to lower cognitive age independent of brain age. No strong evidence was found for associations between brain or cognitive age and lifestyle trajectories from midlife to late life based on latent class growth analyses. However, post hoc analyses revealed a relationship between cumulative lifestyle measures and brain age independent of cognitive age. In conclusion, we present a novel approach to characterizing brain and cognitive maintenance in aging, which may be useful for future studies seeking to identify factors that contribute to brain preservation and cognitive reserve mechanisms in older age.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.