Adipose tissue distribution from body MRI is associated with cross-sectional and longitudinal brain age in adults

NeuroImage: Clinical

Knut K. Kolskår¹  Mads L. Pedersen²  Tobias Kaufmann³  Geneviève Richard⁴  Ole A. Andreassen⁵  Tiril P. Gurholt⁵  Dag Alnæs⁵  Ann-Marie G. de Lange⁶  Erlend S. Dørum⁶  Adriano Winterton⁶  Jennifer Linge⁶  Jan Egil Nordvik⁶  Rozalyn Simon⁷  Ivan I. Maximov⁸  Lars T. Westlye⁹  Nils Eiel Steen^1,10  Olof Dahlqvist Leinhard^1,10  Kristine M. Ulrichsen^1,10  Dani Beck^1,10  Anne-Marthe Sanders^1,10 

[1] Bjørknes College, Oslo, Norway;Corresponding authors at: Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, PoBox 1094 Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway.;Department of Health and Functioning, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Norway;Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, UK;Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway;Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway;LREN, Centre for Research in Neurosciences-Department of Clinical Neurosciences, CHUV and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland;Sunnaas Rehabilitation Hospital HT, Nesodden, Norway;AMRA Medical AB, Linköping, Sweden;;NORMENT, Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital &

关键词: Adipose tissue;    Obesity;    T1;    DTI;    MRI;    Brain age;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

There is an intimate body-brain connection in ageing, and obesity is a key risk factor for poor cardiometabolic health and neurodegenerative conditions. Although research has demonstrated deleterious effects of obesity on brain structure and function, the majority of studies have used conventional measures such as waist-to-hip ratio, waist circumference, and body mass index. While sensitive to gross features of body composition, such global anthropometric features fail to describe regional differences in body fat distribution and composition. The sample consisted of baseline brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) acquired from 790 healthy participants aged 18–94 years (mean ± standard deviation (SD) at baseline: 46.8 ± 16.3), and follow-up brain MRI collected from 272 of those individuals (two time-points with 19.7 months interval, on average (min = 9.8, max = 35.6). Of the 790 included participants, cross-sectional body MRI data was available from a subgroup of 286 participants, with age range 19–86 (mean = 57.6, SD = 15.6). Adopting a mixed cross-sectional and longitudinal design, we investigated cross-sectional body magnetic resonance imaging measures of adipose tissue distribution in relation to longitudinal brain structure using MRI-based morphometry (T1) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). We estimated tissue-specific brain age at two time points and performed Bayesian multilevel modelling to investigate the associations between adipose measures at follow-up and brain age gap (BAG) – the difference between actual age and the prediction of the brain’s biological age – at baseline and follow-up. We also tested for interactions between BAG and both time and age on each adipose measure. The results showed credible associations between T1-based BAG and liver fat, muscle fat infiltration (MFI), and weight-to-muscle ratio (WMR), indicating older-appearing brains in people with higher measures of adipose tissue. Longitudinal evidence supported interaction effects between time and MFI and WMR on T1-based BAG, indicating accelerated ageing over the course of the study period in people with higher measures of adipose tissue. The results show that specific measures of fat distribution are associated with brain ageing and that different compartments of adipose tissue may be differentially linked with increased brain ageing, with potential to identify key processes involved in age-related transdiagnostic disease processes.

【 授权许可】

Unknown