ArticleBrain structure & function2021
When your brain looks older than expected: combined lifestyle risk and BrainAGE.
Article in Brain structure & function, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 53 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
53 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- BrainAGE, brain health, and mental disorders: A systematic review.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2024Pooled it
- Physical Activity and BrainAGE: Exploring the Impact on Brain Health and Plasticity in Older Adults.Human brain mapping · 2025Trial
- The Effects of a Multidomain Lifestyle Intervention on Brain Function and Its Relation With Immunometabolic Markers and Intestinal Health in Older Adults at Risk of Cognitive Decline: Study Design and Baseline Characteristics of the HELI Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR research protocols · 2025Trial
- Multimodal investigation of the association between shift work and the brain in a population-based sample of older adults.Scientific reports · 2022Trial
- Your brain doesn't look a day past 70! Cross-sectional associations with brain-predicted age in the cognitively-intact oldest-old.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Observational
- Generalizable and explainable deep learning for brain MRI: a multi-cohort evaluation of 3D architectures for age and sex prediction.Brain informatics · 2026Article
- MRI-derived estimation of biological aging in patients with affective disorders in a 9-year follow-up - a prospective marker of future recurrence.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Article
- The exposome of brain aging across 34 countries.Nature medicine · 2026Article
- Exposome-wide patterns predict brain health in aging.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Article
- A generalizable foundation model for analysis of human brain MRI.Nature neuroscience · 2026Article
- Evaluating MRI correlates of lifestyle-based dementia risk reduction: Results from the AgeWell.de imaging study.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2026Article
- Comorbid HIV and Cocaine Use Exacerbate Accelerated Brain Aging.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Association of epigenetic age acceleration with MRI biomarkers of aging and Alzheimer's disease neurodegeneration.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Brain Age Disparities in Psychosis Across DSM Diagnoses and B-SNIP Biotypes.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2026Article
- Fitness and exercise effects on brain age: A randomized clinical trial.Journal of sport and health science · 2025Article
- Epigenetic age acceleration in peripheral blood correlates with brain-MRI age acceleration.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2025Article
- Linking Individual Variability of Multi-modal Connectivity, Lifestyle, Psycho-Social Factors and Cognition in Older Adults.Aging and disease · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
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.
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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 OpenQuestion graph.