The Science Behind NeuroAge
Brain aging begins decades before symptoms appear. As neurons age, mitochondrial function declines, energy production in brain cells becomes less efficient, and the cellular machinery for clearing damaged proteins and maintaining synaptic connections gradually falters, creating the biological conditions in which neurodegeneration takes hold. NeuroAge was built on a single premise that dementia is not inevitable, and the window for meaningful intervention opens long before the disease does.
Multi-modal assessment outperforms any single measurement
The brain ages through overlapping biological processes. Neurons lose connections, blood vessels accumulate damage, inflammatory signaling increases, and energy metabolism in brain cells becomes less efficient, and no single biomarker captures all of these processes at once.
Research published across multiple cohorts and measurement types consistently shows that combining brain imaging, blood-based molecular data, cognitive performance, and genetics explains more variance in dementia risk than any one of these measurements alone. A well-powered study using transcriptomic and neuroimaging data from the same individuals demonstrated that a model incorporating RNA signatures alongside MRI measures explained substantially more of the variance in cognitive function than either approach in isolation, particularly for global cognitive function and executive ability (Wang et al., 2022, Brain Communications).
This is consistent with the broader principle that dementia is a multi-pathway disease. Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia, and Parkinsonian syndromes share overlapping biological signatures even as they differ in their clinical presentation. An assessment designed to track early brain aging across these shared pathways is more informative than one calibrated to a single disease endpoint. NeuroAge’s four-component approach reflects this understanding, and its ongoing clinical trial is generating data to validate the combined model prospectively.
Why biological brain age is a stronger predictor of dementia than chronological age
NeuroGames: cognitive performance as a brain aging clock
Brain MRI volumetrics: what your brain structure reveals
RNA blood biomarkers: a brain-specific aging clock found nowhere else
Genetic Resilience: a comprehensive view of dementia and longevity genetics
Blood-based Alzheimer's biomarkers through Quest Diagnostics
NeuroAge's ongoing clinical study, funded by the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation
Building personalized brain health interventions from multi-modal data
The evidence that biological brain aging can be slowed and reversed
How recommendations are generated from your biomarkers
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