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Hermann A, Tarakdjian GN, Temp AGM, Kasper E, Machts J, Kaufmann J, Vielhaber S, Prudlo J, Cole JH, Teipel S, Dyrba M. Cognitive and behavioural but not motor impairment increases brain age in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Brain Commun 2022; 4:fcac239. [PMID: 36246047 PMCID: PMC9556938 DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcac239] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2022] [Revised: 07/01/2022] [Accepted: 09/21/2022] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Age is the most important single risk factor of sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Neuroimaging together with machine-learning algorithms allows estimating individuals' brain age. Deviations from normal brain-ageing trajectories (so called predicted brain age difference) were reported for a number of neuropsychiatric disorders. While all of them showed increased predicted brain-age difference, there is surprisingly few data yet on it in motor neurodegenerative diseases. In this observational study, we made use of previously trained algorithms of 3377 healthy individuals and derived predicted brain age differences from volumetric MRI scans of 112 amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients and 70 healthy controls. We correlated predicted brain age difference scores with voxel-based morphometry data and multiple different motoric disease characteristics as well as cognitive/behavioural changes categorized according to Strong and Rascovsky. Against our primary hypothesis, there was no higher predicted brain-age difference in the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients as a group. None of the motoric phenotypes/characteristics influenced predicted brain-age difference. However, cognitive/behavioural impairment led to significantly increased predicted brain-age difference, while slowly progressive as well as cognitive/behavioural normal amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients had even younger brain ages than healthy controls. Of note, the cognitive/behavioural normal amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients were identified to have increased cerebellar brain volume as potential resilience factor. Younger brain age was associated with longer survival. Our results raise the question whether younger brain age in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis with only motor impairment provides a cerebral reserve against cognitive and/or behavioural impairment and faster disease progression. This new conclusion needs to be tested in subsequent samples. In addition, it will be interesting to test whether a potential effect of cerebral reserve is specific for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or can also be found in other neurodegenerative diseases with primary motor impairment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andreas Hermann
- Translational Neurodegeneration Section “Albrecht Kossel”, Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Rostock, University of Rostock, 18147 Rostock, Germany
- Center for Transdisciplinary Neurosciences Rostock (CTNR), University Medical Center Rostock, University of Rostock, 18147 Rostock, Germany
- Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen (DZNE)Rostock/Greifswald, 18147 Rostock, Germany
| | - Gaël Nils Tarakdjian
- Translational Neurodegeneration Section “Albrecht Kossel”, Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Rostock, University of Rostock, 18147 Rostock, Germany
- Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen (DZNE)Rostock/Greifswald, 18147 Rostock, Germany
| | - Anna Gesine Marie Temp
- Translational Neurodegeneration Section “Albrecht Kossel”, Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Rostock, University of Rostock, 18147 Rostock, Germany
- Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen (DZNE)Rostock/Greifswald, 18147 Rostock, Germany
| | - Elisabeth Kasper
- Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Rostock, University of Rostock, 18147 Rostock, Germany
| | - Judith Machts
- Institute for Cognitive Neurology and Dementia Research, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany
- Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences CBBS, 39104 Magdeburg, Germany
- Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen (DZNE) Magdeburg, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Jörn Kaufmann
- Department of Neurology, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Stefan Vielhaber
- Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen (DZNE) Magdeburg, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany
- Department of Neurology, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Johannes Prudlo
- Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Rostock, University of Rostock, 18147 Rostock, Germany
| | - James H Cole
- Centre for Medical Image Computing, Department of Computer Science, UCL, London, UK
- Dementia Research Centre, Queen Square Institute of Neurology, UCL, London, UK
| | - Stefan Teipel
- Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen (DZNE)Rostock/Greifswald, 18147 Rostock, Germany
- Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, University Medical Center Rostock, University of Rostock, 18147 Rostock, Germany
| | - Martin Dyrba
- Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen (DZNE)Rostock/Greifswald, 18147 Rostock, Germany
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