Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40221600›Full record

ArticleMolecular psychiatry2025

Neuroimaging-derived biological brain age and its associations with glial reactivity and synaptic dysfunction cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers.

Irene Cumplido-Mayoral, Gonzalo Sánchez-Benavides, Natalia Vilor-Tejedor, David López-Martos, Anna Brugulat-Serrat, Marta Milà-Alomà, Carles Falcon, Raffaele Cacciaglia, Carolina Minguillón, Karine Fauria and 9 more

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Molecular psychiatry, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

4 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

19 authors.

Irene Cumplido-MayoralBarcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), Pasqual Maragall Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.
Gonzalo Sánchez-BenavidesBarcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), Pasqual Maragall Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.
Natalia Vilor-TejedorBarcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), Pasqual Maragall Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.
David López-MartosBarcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), Pasqual Maragall Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.ORCID http://orcid.org/0009-0008-1150-2619
Anna Brugulat-SerratBarcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), Pasqual Maragall Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.
Marta Milà-AlomàBarcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), Pasqual Maragall Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.
Carles FalconBarcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), Pasqual Maragall Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.
Raffaele CacciagliaBarcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), Pasqual Maragall Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9216-949X
Carolina MinguillónBarcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), Pasqual Maragall Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.
Karine FauriaBarcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), Pasqual Maragall Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.
Gwendlyn KollmorgenRoche Diagnostics GmbH, Penzberg, Germany.
Clara Quijano-RubioRoche Diagnostics International Ltd, Rotkreuz, Switzerland.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9050-3282
José Luis MolinuevoBarcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), Pasqual Maragall Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.
Oriol Grau-RiveraBarcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), Pasqual Maragall Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.
Marc Suárez-CalvetBarcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), Pasqual Maragall Foundation, Barcelona, Spain. msuarez@barcelonabeta.org.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2993-569X
Verónica VilaplanaDepartment of Signal Theory and Communications, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain.
Juan Domingo GispertBarcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), Pasqual Maragall Foundation, Barcelona, Spain. jdgispert@barcelonabeta.org.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6155-0642
ALFA
ADNI study

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Magnetic resonance Imaging (MRI)-derived brain-age prediction is a promising biomarker of biological brain aging. Accelerated brain aging has been found in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative diseases. However, no previous studies have investigated the relationship between specific pathophysiological pathways in AD and biological brain aging. Here, we studied whether glial reactivity and synaptic dysfunction are associated with biological brain aging in the earliest stages of the Alzheimer's continuum, and if these mechanisms are differently associated with AD-related cortical atrophy. We further evaluated their effects on cognitive decline. We included 380 cognitively unimpaired individuals from the ALFA+ study, for which we computed their brain-age deltas by subtracting chronological age from their brain age predicted by machine learning algorithms. We studied the cross-sectional linear associations between brain-age delta and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers of synaptic dysfunction (neurogranin, GAP43, synaptotagmin-1, SNAP25, and α-synuclein), glial reactivity (sTREM2, YKL-40, GFAP, and S100b) and inflammation (interleukin-6). We also studied the cross-sectional linear associations between AD signature and these CSF biomarkers, We further evaluated the mechanisms linking baseline brain-age delta and longitudinal cognitive decline by performing mediation analyses. To reproduce our findings on an independent cohort, we included 152 cognitively unimpaired and 310 mild cognitive impaired (MCI) individuals from the ADNI study. We found that higher CSF sTREM2 was associated with a younger brain-age after adjusting for AD pathology, both in ALFA+ cognitively unimpaired and in ADNI MCI individuals. Furthermore, we found that CSF sTREM2 fully mediated the link between older brain-age and cognitive decline in ALFA+. In summary, we showed that the protective microglial state reflected by higher CSF sTREM2 has a beneficial impact on biological brain aging that may partly explains the variability in cognitive decline in early AD stages, independently of AD pathology.

Indexed as

AgingBrainNeurogliaAgedAged, 80 and overAlzheimer DiseaseAtrophyBiomarkersCognitive DysfunctionCross-Sectional StudiesFemaleHumansMagnetic Resonance ImagingMaleMiddle AgedNeuroimagingBiomarkers

Identifiers

PMID40221600
PMCPMC12240798

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LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
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Registered trials

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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.