Brain age (MRI-based)
DEGehirnalter (MRT-basiert)
MRI-based brain age estimates how old your brain looks biologically, from brain-imaging features. Those features include cortical thickness, white-matter integrity, gray-matter volume, and functional connectivity. A machine-learning model, trained on large brain-scan datasets, turns them into an age. The key number is the gap between your predicted brain age and your real age, called the brain-age gap (or BrainAGE, introduced by Franke et al., 2010). A positive gap (brain looks older) goes with cognitive decline, neurodegeneration, stroke, and higher death risk. A negative gap (brain looks younger) goes with better cognitive reserve. But accuracy and interpretation vary with the imaging protocol, the processing pipeline, and who was in the training data.
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