Brain Test Could Predict Dementia Before Doctors Can See It, Study Suggests
Summary
A study found that comparing a person's brain age, estimated by MRI and an AI algorithm, to their actual age may help predict dementia risk earlier than current methods. Researchers discovered that a brain that looks older than the person’s real age increases the chance of developing dementia, especially in the early stages when other tests might not catch it.Key Facts
- Dementia affects memory, thinking, and daily activities; 57 million people had dementia worldwide in 2021.
- Current tests use visual brain scans but often miss early brain changes linked to dementia.
- Researchers at Amsterdam UMC used AI to measure how old a brain looks on MRI compared to the person’s real age.
- Each year a brain looks older than the person’s actual age raises dementia risk by 6 percent.
- The study involved 412 people with subjective cognitive decline and 387 with mild cognitive impairment from 2002 to 2024.
- The brain age test was especially useful in detecting early changes in people with subjective cognitive decline but less so for those with mild cognitive impairment.
- If a person’s brain looked at least 2.6 years younger than their real age, they had up to a 99 percent chance of not developing dementia in 2 to 10 years.
- Researchers think this AI brain age tool could work alongside current MRI assessments to better identify people at risk of dementia.
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