ArticlePsychological medicine2023
Social isolation from childhood to mid-adulthood: is there an association with older brain age?
Article in Psychological medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Transdiagnostic Association Between Childhood Trauma and Accelerated Brain Aging in Two Independent Datasets.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2026Article
- Childhood maltreatment and joint trajectories of social isolation and depression as predictors of cognitive impairment in late midlife: a prospective cohort study.Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2026Article
- Social isolation in mid-life: associations with psychological distress, life satisfaction and self-rated health in two successive British birth cohorts.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Extensive T1-weighted MRI Preprocessing Improves Generalizability of Deep Brain Age Prediction Models.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundOlder brain age - as estimated from structural MRI data - is known to be associated with detrimental mental and physical health outcomes in older adults. Social isolation, which has similar detrimental effects on health, may be associated with accelerated brain aging though little is known about how different trajectories of social isolation across the life course moderate this association. We examined the associations between social isolation trajectories from age 5 to age 38 and brain age assessed at age 45.
methodsWe previously created a typology of social isolation based on onset during the life course and persistence into adulthood, using group-based trajectory analysis of longitudinal data from a New Zealand birth cohort. The typology comprises four groups: 'never-isolated', 'adult-only', 'child-only', and persistent 'child-adult' isolation. A brain age gap estimate (brainAGE) - the difference between predicted age from structural MRI date and chronological age - was derived at age 45. We undertook analyses of brainAGE with trajectory group as the predictor, adjusting for sex, family socio-economic status, and a range of familial and child-behavioral factors.
resultsOlder brain age in mid-adulthood was associated with trajectories of social isolation after adjustment for family and child confounders, particularly for the 'adult-only' group compared to the 'never-isolated' group.
conclusionsAlthough our findings are associational, they indicate that preventing social isolation, particularly in mid-adulthood, may help to avert accelerated brain aging associated with negative health outcomes later in life.
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