AI can tell if your brain is aging faster than you are
A person’s sleeping brain may reveal warning signs of dementia long before memory problems begin. Researchers used machine learning to analyze EEG recordings from about 7,000 adults and found that an older-than-expected “brain age” was tied to a sharply higher dementia risk. Every additional 10 years of brain aging raised that risk by nearly 40%.
A machine-learning system analyzed brain activity during sleep to estimate individuals' brain age, revealing a potential link between aging brains and increased dementia risk. The study, led by UC San Francisco and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center researchers, found that for every 10-year difference between estimated brain age and actual age, dementia risk rose by nearly 40%.
Participants with younger estimated brain ages had a lower risk. The researchers used a model that analyzed 13 specific EEG features, including delta waves and sleep spindles, which are associated with memory and cognitive health. Despite accounting for various factors like education, smoking, and genetics, the association between an older estimated brain age and higher dementia risk persisted.
This sleep-based brain age measurement, which can be obtained without invasive procedures, may eventually help assess dementia risk outside of traditional clinical settings.
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