How you can slow the speed at which your brain ages

The fact that you’re 42 or 65 or 81 doesn’t mean your brain is the same age. Your life experiences and what you do with them can make your brain act anything but its age — appearing to be and functioning as if it’s either younger or older.

The difference between chronological reality and the effect of life on the brain is called a brain age gap. And most people do not realize how much control they have over it, according to researchers from the University of Florida, who found that lots of factors are linked to healthier — or less-well — brains.

Think sleep quality, optimism, friendships, strong relationships, coping skills and more. Healthy habits matter.

Chronic pain and socioenvironmental risk factors are known to contribute to brain aging. But how people handle stress and other factors can be protective. Those can “measurably influence” how fast one’s brain ages, even in those with chronic pain.

The researchers set out to see if other factors could counter the burden of pain and socioenvironmental stress.

The answer is yes. Even if you can’t change your socioenvironmental factors or eliminate chronic pain, you can modify behavioral factors.

Recently, Deseret News chatted with two of the researchers from University of Florida about the study, which was published in the journal Brain Communications. Lead author Jared Tanner is a research associate professor in the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology. Kimberly Sibille is an associate professor in the College of Medicine and senior author of the report.

“People with chronic pain who have more of these protective factors report lower pain and younger or more slowly aging brains,” Tanner said. “This is a hopeful message because our research focuses on things that people who have chronic pain can do that might help their brains age better.”

Brain age matters, the two said, because it’s well-known that older brains are more likely to have memory problems, including dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Why ‘lifestyle is medicine’

You can put factors in your life into three different buckets and then see how they can affect your brain. That’s what the researchers did. The first brain-aging bucket includes chronic pain, which is known to age the brain, based on intensity, how often it’s experienced, how long it lasts and whether it’s widespread. Another bucket of brain agers includes lower educational attainment, poverty, being divorced or never married, unemployment, lack of health insurance and living in a neighborhood with fewer resources.

There’s also a bucket for protective factors: Lower or no tobacco use, lower waist circumference, more optimistic, greater positive affect or at least a lower negative one, less perceived stress, higher social support and good sleep.

This is the math part:

• High pain levels equal an older appearing brain.
• Higher socioenvironmental risk also equals a brain that looks older.
• Higher behavioral protective factors equal a younger looking brain.

“Importantly, over a two-year period, having higher behavioral protective factors is associated with a slower aging brain,” Tanner said.

“Lifestyle is medicine,” Sibille added.

Predicting brain age

For two years, the researchers tracked 128 adults out of an initial study of 197 who had chronic pain that was linked to knee osteoarthritis or the risk of developing it. The adults were all middle-aged or older. To estimate brain age, they used a machine-learning system that analyzed MRI scans, estimating the individual’s brain age and then later comparing it to the actual age. The brain-age gap was the factor to determine brain health.

Tanner said that clinicians assessing brain age look at scans for shrinkage in parts of the brain and brain tissue pulling away from the skull. “A young brain fills up the skull nicely,” he said. With an aging brain, there’s thinning involved. And with severe chronic pain, brain structures thin, as well.

It’s possible to “quite reliably” predict brain age with the machine learning AI, Tanner said. What exactly AI looks for isn’t known but training was done using many, many scans.

Sibille said those with more pain and greater socioenvironmental risk are more vulnerable neurobiologically.

She said pain severity and socioenvironmental risk both are linked to visible thinning of the brain. But behaviors and psychological factors can buffer the biological burden of chronic pain and socioenvironmental stress.

Those with the most protective factors had brains that looked eight years younger than their chronological age at the study’s beginning. And their brains aged more slowly over the next two years.

Researchers looked at the entire brain, not just specific regions implicated in conditions like Alzheimer’s, they said, because pain, stress and life experiences affect multiple brain areas at the same time. The whole-brain scan provides a more complete picture of brain aging and health.

They also used well-established ranges for the factors, such as smoking fewer than 99 cigarettes in one’s lifetime or waist circumference numbers.

Why knowledge really is power

Individuals hoping to age well and help their brains can ponder “Am I within what’s considered a healthy range or am I outside of what’s a healthy range for each of these?” Sibille said. “Our study didn’t tell us which is the most important. But we can see there is something additive going on. And the point is, more is better. Period. The more of those protective factors that you have, the better off you are.”

The researchers believe the protective factors are likely to benefit other health conditions, too. So Tanner pictures people assessing themselves against both risk and protective factors. Maybe one’s optimism is good, but sleep quality and duration need work. Or diet could be improved.

Sibille and Tanner agree it’s never too late to benefit from behavior changes. You can improve your trajectory, but doing it as early as possible makes the most sense.

“But while we are alive, our brains are plastic and our systems are functioning each and every moment, everything we do has a biological translation. So I would say it’s never too late,” Sibille said. “There is benefit each and every moment from doing something that’s health promoting.”