TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bittner, Nora
AU  - Jockwitz, Christiane
AU  - Franke, Katja
AU  - Gaser, Christian
AU  - Moebus, Susanne
AU  - Bayen, Ute J
AU  - Amunts, Katrin
AU  - Caspers, Svenja
TI  - When your brain looks older than expected: combined lifestyle risk and BrainAGE.
JO  - Brain structure & function
VL  - 226
SN  - 1863-2661
CY  - Heidelberg
PB  - Springer
M1  - FZJ-2021-01029
SP  - 621–645
PY  - 2021
AB  - Lifestyle may be one source of unexplained variance in the great interindividual variability of the brain in age-related structural differences. While physical and social activity may protect against structural decline, other lifestyle behaviors may be accelerating factors. We examined whether riskier lifestyle correlates with accelerated brain aging using the BrainAGE score in 622 older adults from the 1000BRAINS cohort. Lifestyle was measured using a combined lifestyle risk score, composed of risk (smoking, alcohol intake) and protective variables (social integration and physical activity). We estimated individual BrainAGE from T1-weighted MRI data indicating accelerated brain atrophy by higher values. Then, the effect of combined lifestyle risk and individual lifestyle variables was regressed against BrainAGE. One unit increase in combined lifestyle risk predicted 5.04 months of additional BrainAGE. This prediction was driven by smoking (0.6 additional months of BrainAGE per pack-year) and physical activity (0.55 less months in BrainAGE per metabolic equivalent). Stratification by sex revealed a stronger association between physical activity and BrainAGE in males than females. Overall, our observations may be helpful with regard to lifestyle-related tailored prevention measures that slow changes in brain structure in older adults.
KW  - Lifestyle (Other)
KW  - MR-based age estimation (Other)
KW  - MR-morphometry (Other)
KW  - Physical activity (Other)
KW  - Smoking (Other)
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:33423086
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000606725700001
DO  - DOI:10.1007/s00429-020-02184-6
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/890547
ER  -