Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal MRI Brain Scans Reveal Accelerated Brain Aging in Multiple Sclerosis

In conclusion, using advanced cross-sectional imaging data and machine learning we report higher brain age in patients with MS compared to healthy controls. Longitudinal analysis suggested accelerated brain aging in MS patients with higher levels of brain atrophy and longitudinal progression of changes in WMLL. Brain age estimation is a framework that allows us to downsample the complex brain imaging features into a single individual “score” using automated machine learning, enabling us to gain new insights into the complex brain structure. Jointly, these results corroborate that brain age estimation is a promising and intuitive tool with potential to establish a comprehensive measure of brain health which may guide a personalized treatment approach in MS. Ethics Statement This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the Regional Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics with written informed consent from all subjects. All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The protocol was approved by the South East Regional Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics. Author’s Note A preprint of this manuscript was published at bioRxiv (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/440412v1) on October 10th 28 (34). Author Contributions EH, TK, GN, HH, and LW contributed to the conception and design of the study. EH, TK, GN, KK, GR, HH, and LW contributed to the acquisition and an...
Source: Frontiers in Neurology - Category: Neurology Source Type: research