Longitudinal changes in the brain-age gap in mild cognitive impairment and their relationships with neuropsychological functions and Alzheimer's disease biomarkers.

Introduction: The discrepancy between biological and modeled brain ages-the brain-age gap (BAG)-could indicate potential neuropsychological changes. This study verified if and how longitudinal BAG changes were associated with neuropsychological functions and Alzheimer's disease-related biomarkers in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

Methods: One hundred thirty-eight individuals with MCI and 103 healthy controls (HCs) with three rounds of magnetic resonance imaging scanning were selected from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. We applied support vector regression on functional connectivity for modeling the brain age and further calculated the BAG.

Results: Longitudinal BAG changes were higher in participants with MCI compared to HCs. Larger BAG fluctuations were correlated with poorer cognitive performance and more severe depressive symptoms in patients with MCI. Neurofilament light chain and phosphorylated tau levels were associated with the longitudinal BAG changes.

Discussion: Present findings demonstrated the necessity of incorporating longitudinal BAG in monitoring the neuropsychological status among cognitively vulnerable populations.

Highlights: Brain-age gap (BAG) changes are sensitive indicators of cognitive vulnerability in aging.BAG changes were larger in patients with mild cognitive impairment than in the controls.Longitudinal BAG changes were associated with worse cognitive-affective states.The plasma neurofilament light chain and cerebrospinal fluid phosphorylated tau levels were associated with the BAG changes.