- Gonneaud, Julie;
- Baria, Alex T;
- Pichet Binette, Alexa;
- Gordon, Brian A;
- Chhatwal, Jasmeer P;
- Cruchaga, Carlos;
- Jucker, Mathias;
- Levin, Johannes;
- Salloway, Stephen;
- Farlow, Martin;
- Gauthier, Serge;
- Benzinger, Tammie LS;
- Morris, John C;
- Bateman, Randall J;
- Breitner, John CS;
- Poirier, Judes;
- Vachon-Presseau, Etienne;
- Villeneuve, Sylvia
Resting state functional connectivity (rs-fMRI) is impaired early in persons who subsequently develop Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia. This impairment may be leveraged to aid investigation of the pre-clinical phase of AD. We developed a model that predicts brain age from resting state (rs)-fMRI data, and assessed whether genetic determinants of AD, as well as beta-amyloid (Aβ) pathology, can accelerate brain aging. Using data from 1340 cognitively unimpaired participants between 18-94 years of age from multiple sites, we showed that topological properties of graphs constructed from rs-fMRI can predict chronological age across the lifespan. Application of our predictive model to the context of pre-clinical AD revealed that the pre-symptomatic phase of autosomal dominant AD includes acceleration of functional brain aging. This association was stronger in individuals having significant Aβ pathology.