Older Brain Age Observed in Adults With Sickle Cell Anemia

FRIDAY, Jan. 24, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Adults with sickle cell anemia (SCA) and healthy controls with greater economic deprivation have older brain age, according to a study published online Jan. 17 in JAMA Network Open.

Andria L. Ford, M.D., from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study of 230 adults with and without SCA (123 and 107, respectively) who underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and cognitive assessment. Brain age was estimated using the DeepBrainNet model; brain age gap (BAG) was defined as the estimated brain age minus the chronological age.

The researchers found that compared with individuals in the control cohort, participants with SCA had a larger median BAG (14.2 versus 7.3 years; mean difference, 6.13 years). Relative to the reference DeepBrainNet population, individuals in the control cohort demonstrated a larger BAG (mean difference, 7.52 years). In the control cohort, higher economic deprivation was associated with BAG (β per 1 percent area deprivation index [ADI], 0.079), while in participants with SCA, intracranial vasculopathy and hemoglobin S percentage were associated with BAG (β, 6.562 and 0.089, respectively). BAG demonstrated the largest effect size for cognitive outcomes in the control cohort (e.g., executive function: r = −0.430), while in the SCA cohort, white matter mean diffusivity (MD) demonstrated the largest effect size for cognitive outcomes (e.g., executive function: r = −0.365). BAG mediated the association of ADI with cognitive performance across the study population, while BAG and white matter MD mediated the association of SCA with cognitive performance.

“These findings suggest that brain MRI estimates of age may provide a neuroimaging biomarker of cognitive outcomes in healthy and SCA populations,” the authors write.

Several authors disclosed ties to the biopharmaceutical and medical technology industries.

Abstract/Full Text