Brain age in mood and psychotic disorders: a systematic review and meta‐analysis

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate whether accelerated brain aging occurs in individuals with mood or psychotic disorders.Methods:A systematic review following PRISMA guidelines was conducted. A meta-analysis was then performed to assess neuroimaging-derived brain age gap in three independent groups: (1) schizophrenia and first-episode psychosis, (2) major depressive disorder, and (3) bipolar disorder.Results: A total of 18 papers were included. The random-effects model metaanalysis showed a significantly increased neuroimaging-derived brain age gap relative to age-matched controls for the three major psychiatric disorders, with schizophrenia (3.08; 95%CI [2.32; 3.85]; p < 0.01) presenting the largest effect, followed by bipolar disorder (1.93; [0.53; 3.34]; p < 0.01) and major depressive disorder (1.12; [0.41; 1.83]; p < 0.01). The brain age gap was larger in older compared to younger individuals. Conclusion:Individuals with mood and psychotic disorders may undergo a pro-cess of accelerated brain aging reflected in patterns captured by neuroimaging data. The brain age gap tends to be more pronounced in older individuals, indicating a possible cumulative biological effect of illness burden.

Detection of advanced brain aging in schizophrenia and its structural underpinning by using normative brain age metrics

“…In addition, advanced WM aging has been observed in SZ by using diffusion MRI techniques ( Tonnesen et al, 2020 , Wang et al, 2021 ). Overall, these findings suggest that advanced brain aging exists in individuals with SZ compared to the normal ( Ballester et al, 2021 , Koutsouleris et al, 2014 , Nenadić et al, 2017 ), but the degree of advanced brain aging is heterogeneous and may vary with clinical outcomes such as symptom severity and cognitive deficit ( Koutsouleris et al, 2014 , Schnack et al, 2016 , Wang et al, 2021 ).…”

Depression, aging, and immunity: implications for COVID-19 vaccine immunogenicity

“…At the level of brain, an ENIGMA consortium study of several thousand individuals found that people with MDD had a higher predicted brain age compared to controls although the effect size was small, a 1.08-year increase [ 110 ]. A recent meta-analysis drew a similar conclusion [ 111 ].…”

Brain ageing in schizophrenia: evidence from 26 international cohorts via the ENIGMA Schizophrenia consortium

“…Relative to healthy controls, brain-PAD scores in SZ suggest more advanced brain ageing than in MDD (+1.12 years) [42] and bipolar disorder (BP; +1.93 years) [42], that may reflect more pronounced structural brain abnormalities in SZ [24]. This aligns with previous reports from the ENIGMA consortium, showing largest effect sizes of cortical and subcortical gray matter alterations in SZ (highest Cohen's d effect size=0.53) [16, 17], followed by BD (highest Cohen's d=0.32) [43,44] and MDD (highest Cohen's d=0.14) [45,46].…”