Scientists Say They Can Predict How Long You’ll Live From a Single MRI
This "aging clock" tool could offer a window into your healthspan and lifespan.
If an algorithm could help you predict your risk of chronic illness and reveal your likely lifespan, would you want to know? A team of researchers at Duke University, Harvard University, and the University of Otago in New Zealand suggests they’ve created such a tool—and say that for the patient’s part, it requires only a single brain scan at the age of 45.
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A new tool can determine biological age.
Published on July 1 in the journal Nature Aging, the team’s study introduces DunedinPACNI, a freely available algorithm that can assess biological age, a complex measure of health based on functional capacity. This is different from chronological age, which accounts for the number of years a person has lived.
“The way we age as we get older is quite distinct from how many times we’ve traveled around the sun,” said Ahmad Hariri, PhD, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University via news release. “This is about how fast your body and brain are aging—not just how old you are.”
The team’s newly released “aging clock” system is especially effective at predicting whether a middle-aged and neurologically healthy patient will later go on to develop dementia even decades in the future. However, it can also predict a range of other age-related diseases long before any specific symptoms emerge—allowing a crucial opportunity for people to improve their outcomes through lifestyle interventions.
This is all done via a single MRI brain scan.
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How does the technology work?
Unlike traditional aging clocks that rely on cross-sectional data from people of different ages, DunedinPACNI was trained using longitudinal data from the Dunedin Study, which has followed over 1,000 people from birth in New Zealand since the early 1970s.
The algorithm was trained on scans from Dunedin participants at age 45 and linked to 20 years of biological data, including changes in blood pressure, kidney function, cholesterol, and even oral health. It was then tested on brain scans from participants across the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Latin America.
Across all datasets, the team found that faster aging scores predicted poorer performance on cognitive tests, greater hippocampal shrinkage—a key marker of memory loss—and significantly higher risk of developing dementia.
As part of their analysis, the researchers reviewed brain scans from 624 individuals ranging in age from 52 to 89 from a North American study of risk for Alzheimer’s disease. They found that those who were identified as aging fastest were 60 percent more likely to develop dementia.
Even more alarmingly, they also determined that those with higher biological age were 40 percent more likely to die within the next several years compared with those with lower biological age, offering clues into the subjects’ life expectancies.
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Can you use the scan?
Hariri acknowledges that “drugs can’t resurrect a dying brain.” However, he suggests that with the help of these early warning signs, doctors could intervene against chronic health concerns sooner, before significant damage is done.
While more work is needed before the tool is ready for clinical use, Hariri and colleagues believe the brain-based aging clock will become a vital resource for studying and managing age-related diseases and predicting lifespan.
“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.
