Advanced brain age in community-dwelling population with combined physical and cognitive impairments

We investigated whether advanced brain biological age is associated with accelerated age-related physical and/or cognitive functional decline: mobility impairment no disability (MIND), cognitive impairment no dementia (CIND), and physio-cognitive decline syndrome (PCDS). We constructed a brain age prediction model using gray matter features from the magnetic resonance imaging of 1482 healthy individuals (aged 18-92 years). Predicted and chronological age differences were obtained (brain age gap [BAG]) and analyzed in another 1193 community-dwelling population aged ≥50 years. Among the 1193 participants, there were 501, 346, 148, and 198 in the robust, CIND, MIND, and PCDS groups, respectively. Participants with PCDS had significantly larger BAG (BAG = 2.99 ± 8.97) than the robust (BAG = -0.49 ± 9.27, p = 0.002; η² = 0.014), CIND (BAG = 0.47 ± 9.16, p = 0.02; η² = 0.01), and MIND (BAG = 0.36 ± 9.69, p = 0.036; η² = 0.013) groups. Advanced brain aging is involved in the pathophysiology of the co-occurrence of physical and cognitive decline in the older people. The PCDS may be a clinical phenotype reflective of accelerated biological age in community-dwelling older individuals.