Advanced Medical Scientist-Programm 2020

Thema: "Region-specific BrainAGE in middle and late adulthood: Investigating the relationships between individual body, brain, and cognitive aging"

Zusammenfassung:
With life expectancy rising, it is important to determine what makes some people age more successfully than others. In particular, brain aging is associated with functional deterioration. However, this complex process is still poorly understood, with a likely contribution from individual health and lifestyle factors. In this proposal, I aim to extend the well-established global BrainAGE biomarker to a novel regional BrainAGE biomarker for individualized brain aging in order to systematically explore the complex relationships between individual brain aging, markers of physical aging and cognitive aging, i.e. determining which factors contribute to the individual differences between successful and unsuccessful aging in middle to late adulthood. This research project will use data on over 25,000 individuals. I will take a multi-faceted approach to define (i) structural brain aging, using region-specific BrainAGE scores, (ii) body aging, using a wealth of physiological and health data, and (iii) cognitive aging, using several standardized tests of cognitive function and ability, thereby creating three individual aging constructs. I expect that this research project will further elucidate the role of overall health for individual differences in brain aging.