An exploratory causal analysis of the relationships between the brain age gap and cardiovascular risk factors.

ABSTRACT: The brain age gap (BAG) has been shown to capture accelerated brain aging patterns and might serve as a biomarker for several neurological diseases. Moreover, it was also shown that it captures other biological information related to modifiable cardiovascular risk factors. Previous studies have explored statistical relationships between the BAG and cardiovascular risk factors. However, none of those studies explored causal relationships between the BAG and cardiovascular risk factors. In this work, we employ causal structure discovery techniques and define a Bayesian network to model the assumed causal relationships between the BAG, estimated using morphometric T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging brain features from 2025 adults, and several cardiovascular risk factors. This setup allows

SUBMITTER: Mouches P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9441743 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature