The additive impact of cardio-metabolic disorders and psychiatric illnesses on accelerated brain aging.
Ryan MC., Hong LE., Hatch KS., Gao S., Chen S., Haerian K., Wang J., Goldwaser EL., Du X., Adhikari BM., Bruce H., Hare S., Kvarta MD., Jahanshad N., Nichols TE., Thompson PM., Kochunov P.
Severe mental illnesses (SMI) including major depressive disorder (MDD), bipolar disorder (BD), and schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) elevate accelerated brain aging risks. Cardio-metabolic disorders (CMD) are common comorbidities in SMI and negatively impact brain health. We validated a linear quantile regression index (QRI) approach against the machine learning "BrainAge" index in an independent SSD cohort (N = 206). We tested the direct and additive effects of SMI and CMD effects on accelerated brain aging in the N = 1,618 (604 M/1,014 F, average age = 63.53 ± 7.38) subjects with SMI and N = 11,849 (5,719 M/6,130 F; 64.42 ± 7.38) controls from the UK Biobank. Subjects were subdivided based on diagnostic status: SMI+/CMD+ (N = 665), SMI+/CMD- (N = 964), SMI-/CMD+ (N = 3,765), SMI-/CMD- (N = 8,083). SMI (F = 40.47, p = 2.06 × 10-10 ) and CMD (F = 24.69, p = 6.82 × 10-7 ) significantly, independently impacted whole-brain QRI in SMI+. SSD had the largest effect (Cohen's d = 1.42) then BD (d = 0.55), and MDD (d = 0.15). Hypertension had a significant effect on SMI+ (d = 0.19) and SMI- (d = 0.14). SMI effects were direct, independent of MD, and remained significant after correcting for effects of antipsychotic medications. Whole-brain QRI was significantly (p