Neuroimaging‐based Biomarkers of Brain Aging in Healthy Older Adults

With increasing longevity, the incidence of age‐associated functional decline and dementia is on the rise, with Alzheimer’s disease, the third most common type of dementia, projected to affect 13.8 million people by 2050. Previous studies on aging populations have reported that while people chronologically age at the same rate, an individual’s brain maturation/aging trajectory, which can be quantified by measuring the deviation of their brain’s structure and function from normative data, can be predictive of more serious forms of cognitive decline. Software capable of accurately computing this trajectory based on commonly acquired clinical scans, such as BrainAGE R, could provide reliable biomarkers of pre‐clinical disease states thereby enhancing clinicians’ ability to make early diagnosis of cognitive decline. In this study, we evaluate the relationship between resting‐state functional connectivity (rsFC) and BrainAGE measures in healthy older adults.