New Study Identifies Lifestyle Profiles Linked to Brain Ageing in Depression

Writer: Dr. Nicole Sanford @ University of British Columbia

---

A new study using UK Biobank data suggests that lifestyle and physical health may help explain why some people with depression show signs of accelerated brain ageing while others do not. Researchers analysed lifestyle, physical health, and social factors in 896 adults with depression and 36,206 participants without a psychiatric illness to better understand the links between everyday habits and brain ageing.

The researchers measured “brain age” using machine-learning models that predict how old a person's brain appears based on their MRI scan. When the predicted age exceeds a person's actual age – a difference known as the brain-age gap estimate (brainAGE) – it may indicate accelerated brain ageing.

Four distinct health and lifestyle profiles emerged among participants with depression, ranging from a “balanced-active” group with a varied diet, regular physical activity, and strong social support to a “high metabolic risk-sedentary” group with poor diet, physical inactivity, high body mass, sleep problems, and reduced social engagement. While the four groups did not differ in whole-brain estimates of brainAGE, meaningful patterns emerged when brainAGE was estimated at a finer spatial scale.

Across participants with depression, the frontal cortex and insula showed slightly increased brainAGE, implicating brain networks previously linked to emotion regulation and depression. However, when analysing the four depression groups separately, only the "high metabolic risk-sedentary" group showed further brainAGE increases, affecting the prefrontal cortex, parahippocampus, and thalamus.

The findings suggest that brain health in depression reflects part of a broader pattern including lifestyle, physical health, and social factors. By highlighting the heterogeneity of depression, the study underscores the importance of considering individual circumstances when investigating brain health and developing personalised treatment approaches.