(Press-News.org) DURHAM, N.C. -- Any high school reunion is a sharp reminder that some people age more gracefully than others. Some enter their older years still physically spry and mentally sharp. Others start feeling frail or forgetful much earlier in life than expected.
“The way we age as we get older is quite distinct from how many times we’ve traveled around the sun,” said Ahmad Hariri, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University.
Now, scientists at Duke, Harvard and the University of Otago in New Zealand have developed a freely available tool that can tell how fast someone is aging, and while they’re still reasonably healthy -- by looking at a snapshot of their brain.
From a single MRI brain scan, the tool can estimate your risk in midlife for chronic diseases that typically emerge decades later. That information could help motivate lifestyle and dietary changes that improve health.
In older people, the tool can predict whether someone will develop dementia or other age-related diseases years before symptoms appear, when they might have a better shot at slowing the course of disease.
“What's really cool about this is that we've captured how fast people are aging using data collected in midlife,” Hariri said. “And it’s helping us predict diagnosis of dementia among people who are much older.”
The results were published July 1 in the journal Nature Aging.
Finding ways to slow age-related decline is key to helping people live healthier, longer lives. But first “we need to figure out how we can monitor aging in an accurate way,” Hariri said.
Several algorithms have been developed to measure how well a person is aging. But most of these “aging clocks” rely on data collected from people of different ages at a single point in time, rather than following the same individuals as they grow older, Hariri said.
“Things that look like faster aging may simply be because of differences in exposure” to things such as leaded gasoline or cigarette smoke that are specific to their generation, Hariri said.
The challenge, he added, is to come up with a measure of how fast the process is unfolding that isn’t confounded by environmental or historical factors unrelated to aging.
To do that, the researchers drew on data gathered from some 1,037 people who have been studied since birth as part of the Dunedin Study, named after the New Zealand city where they were born between 1972 and 1973.
Every few years, Dunedin Study researchers looked for changes in the participants’ blood pressure, body mass index, glucose and cholesterol levels, lung and kidney function and other measures -- even gum recession and tooth decay.
They used the overall pattern of change across these health markers over nearly 20 years to generate a score for how fast each person was aging.
The new tool, named DunedinPACNI, was trained to estimate this rate of aging score using only information from a single brain MRI scan that was collected from 860 Dunedin Study participants when they were 45 years old.
Next the researchers used it to analyze brain scans in other datasets from people in the U.K., the U.S., Canada and Latin America.
Faster aging and higher dementia risk
Across data sets, they found that people who were aging faster by this measure performed worse on cognitive tests and showed faster shrinkage in the hippocampus, a brain region crucial for memory.
More soberingly, they were also more likely to experience cognitive decline in later years.
In one analysis, the researchers examined brain scans from 624 individuals ranging in age from 52 to 89 from a North American study of risk for Alzheimer’s disease.
Those who the tool deemed to be aging the fastest when they joined the study were 60% more likely to develop dementia in the years that followed. They also started to have memory and thinking problems sooner than those who were aging slower.
When the team first saw the results, “our jaws just dropped to the floor,” Hariri said.
Links between body and brain
The researchers also found that people whose DunedinPACNI scores indicated they were aging faster were more likely to suffer declining health overall, not just in their brain function.
People with faster aging scores were more frail and more likely to experience age-related health problems such as heart attacks, lung disease or strokes.
The fastest agers were 18% more likely to be diagnosed with a chronic disease within the next several years compared with people with average aging rates.
Even more alarming, they were also 40% more likely to die within that timeframe than those who were aging more slowly, the researchers found.
“The link between aging of the brain and body are pretty compelling,” Hariri said.
The correlations between aging speed and dementia were just as strong in other demographic and socioeconomic groups than the ones the model was trained on, including a sample of people from Latin America, as well as United Kingdom participants who were low-income or non-White.
“It seems to be capturing something that is reflected in all brains,” Hariri said.
The work is important because people worldwide are living longer. In the coming decades, the number of people over age 65 is expected to double, reaching nearly one fourth of the world’s population by 2050.
“But because we live longer lives, more people are unfortunately going to experience chronic age-related diseases, including dementia,” Hariri said.
Dementia’s economic burden is already huge. Research suggests that the global cost of Alzheimer’s care, for example, will grow from $1.33 trillion in 2020 to $9.12 trillion in 2050 -- comparable or greater than the costs of diseases like lung disease or diabetes that affect more people.
Effective treatments for Alzheimer’s have proven elusive. Most approved drugs can help manage symptoms but fail to stop or reverse the disease.
One possible explanation for why drugs haven’t worked so far is they were started too late, when the Alzheimer’s proteins that build up in and around nerve cells have already done too much damage.
“Drugs can't resurrect a dying brain,” Hariri said.
But in the future, the new tool could make it possible to identify people who may be on the way to Alzheimer's sooner, and evaluate interventions to stop it -- before brain damage becomes extensive, and without waiting decades for follow-up.
In addition to predicting our risk of dementia over time, the new clock will also help scientists better understand why people with certain risk factors, such as poor sleep or mental health conditions, age differently, said first author Ethan Whitman, who is working toward a Ph.D. in clinical psychology with Hariri and study co-authors Terrie Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi, also professors of psychology and neuroscience at Duke.
More research is needed to advance DunedinPACNI from a research tool to something that has practical applications in healthcare, Whitman added.
But in the meantime, the team hopes the tool will help researchers with access to brain MRI data measure aging rates in ways that aging clocks based on other biomarkers, such as blood tests, can’t.
“We really think of it as hopefully being a key new tool in forecasting and predicting risk for diseases, especially Alzheimer's and related dementias, and also perhaps gaining a better foothold on progression of disease,” Hariri said.
The authors have filed a patent application for the work. This research was supported by the U.S. National Institute on Aging (R01AG049789, R01AG032282, R01AG073207), the UK Medical Research Council (MR/X021149/1), and the New Zealand Health Research Council (Programme Grant 16-604).
CITATION: "DunedinPACNI Estimates the Longitudinal Pace of Aging From a Single Brain Image to Track Health and Disease," Ethan T. Whitman, Maxwell L. Elliott, Annchen R. Knodt, Wickliffe C. Abraham, Tim J. Anderson, Nick Cutfield, Sean Hogan, David Ireland, Tracy R. Melzer, Sandhya Ramrakha, Karen Sugden, Reremoana Theodore, Benjamin S. Williams, Avshalom Caspi, Terrie E. Moffitt, & Ahmad R. Hariri. Nature Aging, July 1, 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s43587-025-00897-z
END
Scientists can tell how fast you're aging from a single brain scan
New aging clock can predict risk for dementia, other age-related diseases years before symptoms appear
2025-07-01
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
U.S. uterine cancer incidence and mortality rates expected to significantly increase by 2050
2025-07-01
Bottom Line: Uterine cancer incidence and mortality rates are projected to increase significantly over the next three decades in the United States, with incidence-based mortality expected to be nearly three times higher in Black women compared with white women by 2050.
Journal in Which the Study was Published: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
Author: Jason D. Wright, MD, chief of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at Columbia University
Background: ...
Public take the lead in discovery of new exploding star
2025-07-01
Previously described as playing astronomical ‘spot the difference,’ Kilonova Seekers asks the public to compare the latest images of a section of night sky to an image of the same section of space taken on previous nights. Their goal – to spot new stars or significant changes in light intensity that may indicate that something remarkable has happened in space.
Published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics, the project has announced its first published major discovery – a bright exploding star.
The object underwent an extreme brightening (increasing ...
What are they vaping? Study reveals alarming surge in adolescent vaping of THC, CBD, and synthetic cannabinoids
2025-07-01
Ann Arbor, July 1, 2025 - Novel research has revealed that adolescent vaping of current delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol (CBD), and synthetic cannabinoids (SCs) has increased between 2021 and 2023. Also, adolescents are increasingly unsure about the substances they vaped in their e-cigarettes. A new study appearing in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier, sheds light on this alarming trend and contributes to informing evidence-based public health policies and harm reduction strategies aimed at protecting ...
ECMWF - delivering forecasts over 10 times faster and cutting energy usage by 1000
2025-07-01
Embargo Tuesday 1st July 2025 06:00AM BST
Today, just over 100 days after the launch into production of the world first openly available 24/7 operational AI forecast model AIFS-Single, ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) is unveiling the first ensemble model using Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning. The new model, called AIFS ENS, will be available as open source to the user community over the coming weeks.
The new ensemble model outperforms state-of-the-art physics-based models for many measures, including surface temperature, with gains of up to 20%. At ...
Brazilian neuroscientist reveals how viral infections transform the brain through microscopic detective work
2025-07-01
DAVIS, California, USA, 1 July 2025 – In a comprehensive Genomic Press Innovators & Ideas interview, Dr. Danielle Beckman reveals how her passion for microscopy has evolved into a mission to understand viral impacts on brain health, offering hope for patients suffering from post-viral neurological symptoms.
From Rio to Revolutionary Research
Dr. Beckman's journey from aspiring writer in Rio de Janeiro to leading neurovirology researcher exemplifies scientific determination. Her journey began to change during an undergraduate physiology course where she discovered her fascination with the brain. "I vividly remember that class and how fascinated I became with the brain," ...
Turning social fragmentation into action through discovering relatedness
2025-07-01
Discovering relatedness outside of a topical issue helps diverse groups to overcome differences and develop action for social change. The Kobe University addition to educational theory offers a framework to analyze and promote intersectional learning.
To achieve social change in a fragmented modern society, individuals from diverse backgrounds need to join together and develop a common plan for action. This is important especially for education related to social change, where groups of varying involvement in a particular issue, e.g., learners and teachers, interact in a structured setting. Current educational theories fall short of offering a framework of how such cultural differences ...
Cheese may really be giving you nightmares, scientists find
2025-07-01
Scientists have found that eating too much dairy could ruin your sleep. Researchers questioned more than 1,000 students about the quality of their sleep, their eating habits, and any perceived link between the two, and found a strong association between nightmares and lactose intolerance — potentially because gas or stomach pain during the night affects people’s dreams.
“Nightmare severity is robustly associated with lactose intolerance and other food allergies,” said Dr Tore Nielsen of Université de Montréal, lead author of the article in Frontiers in Psychology. “These new findings imply that changing eating habits for ...
Study reveals most common medical emergencies in schools
2025-07-01
The three most common reasons schools called emergency medical services (EMS) were for neurological crises such as seizures, psychiatric conditions or substance abuse, and trauma related injuries, according to data from the national EMS registry analyzed by researchers from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
During the study period (2018-2022), school-based medical emergencies constituted 11 percent of EMS encounters for children and two-thirds resulted in transport to the hospital. Findings, published in Pediatrics, can help schools prioritize training so staff can respond even before EMS arrival.
“While many schools have taken ...
Breathable yet protective: Next-gen medical textiles with micro/nano networks
2025-07-01
A research team led by Professors Xianfeng Wang and Bin Ding from Donghua University has developed a breakthrough in protective textile technology by engineering highly permeable, liquid-repellent textiles (HPPT) with micro/nano-network structures. Published in Nano-Micro Letters, this innovative work presents a scalable and practical solution to the long-standing challenge of balancing protection and comfort in medical clothing. The newly developed HPPT materials offer superior air and moisture permeability, robust mechanical durability, and exceptional ...
Frequency-engineered MXene supercapacitors enable efficient pulse charging in TENG–SC hybrid systems
2025-07-01
A team of researchers from Yonsei University and Pohang University of Science and Technology, led by Professors Sang-Young Lee, Sang-Woo Kim, and Changshin Jo, has unveiled a groundbreaking strategy to overcome the long-standing challenge of efficient energy storage in triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) systems. Published in Nano-Micro Letters, this work introduces a system-level solution that leverages frequency modulation to significantly enhance the compatibility and charging efficiency between TENGs and supercapacitors ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
Danforth Plant Science Center adds two new faculty members
Robotic eyes mimic human vision for superfast response to extreme lighting
Racial inequities and access to COVID-19 treatment
Residential segregation and lung cancer risk in African American adults
Scientists wipe out aggressive brain cancer tumors by targeting cellular ‘motors’
Capturability distinction analysis of continuous and pulsed guidance laws
CHEST expands Bridging Specialties Initiative to include NTM disease and bronchiectasis on World Bronchiectasis Day
Exposure to air pollution may cause heart damage
SwRI, UTSA selected by NASA to test electrolyzer technology aboard parabolic flight
Prebiotics might be a factor in preventing or treating issues caused by low brain GABA
Youngest in class at higher risk of mental health problems
American Heart Association announces new volunteer leaders for 2025-26
Gut microbiota analysis can help catch gestational diabetes
FAU’s Paulina DeVito awarded prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Champions for change – Paid time off initiative just made clinical trials participation easier
Fentanyl detection through packaging
Prof. Eran Meshorer elected to EMBO for pioneering work in epigenetics
New 3D glacier visualizations provide insights into a hotter Earth
Creativity across disciplines
Consequences of low Antarctic sea ice
Hear here: How loudness and acoustic cues help us judge where a speaker is facing
A unique method of rare-earth recycling can strengthen the raw material independence of Europe and America
Epilepsy self-management program shows promise to control seizures, improve mood and quality of life
Fat may play an important role in brain metabolism
New study finds no lasting impact of pandemic pet ownership on human well-being
New insights on genetic damage of some chemotherapies could guide future treatments with less harmful side effects
Gut microbes could protect us from toxic ‘forever chemicals’
Novel modelling links sea ice loss to Antarctic ice shelf calving events
Scientists can tell how fast you're aging from a single brain scan
U.S. uterine cancer incidence and mortality rates expected to significantly increase by 2050
[Press-News.org] Scientists can tell how fast you're aging from a single brain scanNew aging clock can predict risk for dementia, other age-related diseases years before symptoms appear