TY - JOUR
T1 - DunedinPACNI estimates the longitudinal Pace of Aging from a single brain image to track health and disease
AU - Whitman, Ethan T.
AU - Elliott, Maxwell L.
AU - Knodt, Annchen R.
AU - Abraham, Wickliffe C.
AU - Anderson, Tim J.
AU - Cutfield, Nicholas J.
AU - Hogan, Sean
AU - Ireland, David
AU - Melzer, Tracy R.
AU - Ramrakha, Sandhya
AU - Sugden, Karen
AU - Theodore, Reremoana
AU - Williams, Benjamin S.
AU - Caspi, Avshalom
AU - Moffitt, Terrie E.
AU - Hariri, Ahmad R.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2025.
PY - 2025/8
Y1 - 2025/8
N2 - To understand how aging affects functional decline and increases disease risk, it is necessary to develop measures of how fast a person is aging. Using data from the Dunedin Study, we introduce an accurate and reliable measure for the rate of longitudinal aging derived from cross-sectional brain magnetic resonance imaging, that is, the Dunedin Pace of Aging Calculated from NeuroImaging (DunedinPACNI). Exporting this measure to the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, UK Biobank and BrainLat datasets revealed that faster DunedinPACNI predicted cognitive impairment, accelerated brain atrophy and conversion to diagnosed dementia. Faster DunedinPACNI also predicted physical frailty, poor health, future chronic diseases and mortality in older adults. When compared to brain age gap, DunedinPACNI was similarly or more strongly related to clinical outcomes. DunedinPACNI is a next-generation brain magnetic resonance imaging biomarker that can help researchers explore aging effects on health outcomes and evaluate the effectiveness of antiaging strategies.
AB - To understand how aging affects functional decline and increases disease risk, it is necessary to develop measures of how fast a person is aging. Using data from the Dunedin Study, we introduce an accurate and reliable measure for the rate of longitudinal aging derived from cross-sectional brain magnetic resonance imaging, that is, the Dunedin Pace of Aging Calculated from NeuroImaging (DunedinPACNI). Exporting this measure to the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, UK Biobank and BrainLat datasets revealed that faster DunedinPACNI predicted cognitive impairment, accelerated brain atrophy and conversion to diagnosed dementia. Faster DunedinPACNI also predicted physical frailty, poor health, future chronic diseases and mortality in older adults. When compared to brain age gap, DunedinPACNI was similarly or more strongly related to clinical outcomes. DunedinPACNI is a next-generation brain magnetic resonance imaging biomarker that can help researchers explore aging effects on health outcomes and evaluate the effectiveness of antiaging strategies.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105009802764
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105009802764#tab=citedBy
U2 - 10.1038/s43587-025-00897-z
DO - 10.1038/s43587-025-00897-z
M3 - Article
C2 - 40595015
AN - SCOPUS:105009802764
SN - 2662-8465
VL - 5
SP - 1619
EP - 1636
JO - Nature Aging
JF - Nature Aging
IS - 8
ER -