Inquiring minds want to know what this would say about stroke survivors. But it won't occur because our stroke associations are not innovative enough to even try to find answers to any stroke question.
So we are left with this very old statement. Compared with the normal rate of neuron
loss in brain aging, the ischemic brain ages 3.6 years each hour
without treatment.
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=151080&CultureCode=en
People who have suffered serious head injuries show changes in brain
structure resembling those seen in older people, according to a new
study.
Researchers at Imperial College London analysed brain scans from over
1,500 healthy people to develop a computer program that could predict a
person's age from their brain scan. Then they used the program to
estimate the "brain age" of 113 more healthy people and 99 patients who
had suffered traumatic brain injuries.
The brain injury patients were estimated to be around five years older on average than their real age.
Head injuries are already known to increase the risk of age-related
neurological conditions such as dementia later in life. The age
prediction model may be useful as a screening tool to identify patients
who are likely to develop problems and to target strategies that prevent
or slow their decline.
"Your chronological age is not necessarily the best indicator of your
health or how much longer you will live," said Dr James Cole, who led
the study, from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London.
"There is a lot of interest in finding biomarkers of ageing that can be
used to measure a certain aspect of your health and predict future
problems."
The study, published in the April issue of Annals of Neurology, used
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study changes in brain structure.
The researchers used a machine learning algorithm to develop a computer
program that could recognise age-related differences in the volume of
white matter and grey matter in different parts of the brain.
The model was then used to estimate subjects' ages based on their
brain scans. The study included 99 patients with traumatic brain
injuries (TBI) caused by road accidents, falls or assaults, who had
persistent neurological problems. The scans were taken between one month
and 46 years after their injuries.
In healthy controls, the average difference between predicted age and
real age was zero. In TBI patients, the difference was significantly
higher, with a bigger discrepancy in patients with more severe injuries.
Bigger differences in predicted age were associated with cognitive
impairments such as poor memory and slow reaction times.
There was also a correlation between time since injury and predicted
age difference, suggesting that these changes in brain structure do not
occur during the injury itself, but result from ongoing biological
processes, potentially similar to those seen in normal ageing, that
progress more quickly after an injury.
"Traumatic brain injury is not a static event," said Dr Cole. "It can
set off secondary processes, possibly related to inflammation, that can
cause more damage in the brain for years afterwards, and may contribute
to the development of Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia."
The researchers believe the age prediction model could be applied not
just to TBI patients, but might also be useful to screen outwardly
healthy people.
"We want to do a study where we use the program to estimate brain age
in healthy people, then see if the ones with 'old brains' are more
likely to get neurodegenerative diseases. If it works, we could use it
to identify people at high risk, enrol them in trials and potentially
prescribe treatments that might stave off disease," said Dr Cole.
The researchers received funding from the EU Seventh Framework
Programme and a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)
professorship for Professor David Sharp. The research was also supported
by the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre.
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