Risk factors for faster aging in the brain revealed in new study

They showed that this brain network is also particularly vulnerable to schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. In this new study, published in Nature Communications, they investigated the genetic and modifiable influences on these fragile brain regions by looking at the brain scans of 40,000 UK Biobank participants aged over 45. The researchers examined 161 risk factors for dementia, and ranked their impact on this vulnerable brain network, over and above the natural effects of age. The overall curve shows that, in these particularly fragile regions of the brain, there is accelerated degeneration with age. The paper ‘The effects of genetic and modifiable risk factors on brain regions vulnerable to ageing and disease’ is published in Nature Communications.