A large MRI study involving nearly 49,000 people found that different brain disorders accelerate aging in distinct brain regions. Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment showed the strongest acceleration, followed by addiction and psychiatric conditions like schizophrenia. Researchers used a measure called predictive age difference to compare a person's actual age with the age estimated from brain scans. Alzheimer's and dementia affected the frontal and occipital cortex most, while addiction showed changes in the default mode and salience networks. ADHD and autism showed no significant overall brain aging acceleration. The findings suggest that brain aging biomarkers could one day help identify and track common neurological and psychiatric conditions, and that distinct biological pathways underlie how each disorder ages the brain.
