Patients with sickle cell disease have been found to have brains that appear 14 years older than their actual age in a new neurological study.
Researchers in St Louis, USA, say that this could be caused by chronic deprivation of oxygen experienced by sickle cell carriers since early in life.
The study involved more than 200 young, black adults who were tested with MRI scans, using models of brain age developed on a diverse group of 14,000 adults. Importantly, the brain age gap was also present in adults with sickle cell who have not experienced a stroke.
As well as studying the impact of sickle cell disease, the researchers sought to study the impact of economic deprivation and found it linked to a seven-year gap in brain age.
The findings have been reported in JAMA Network Open.
Study leader Professor Andria Ford, of the Washington University School of Medicine, said: “Our study explains how a chronic illness and low socioeconomic status can cause cognitive problems. We found that such factors could impact brain development and/or aging, which ultimately affects the mental processes involved in thinking, remembering and problem solving, among others.
“Understanding the influence that sickle cell disease and economic deprivation have on brain structure may lead to treatments and preventive measures that potentially could preserve cognitive function.”
The researchers say they now plan further tests after a gap of three years. Professor Ford explained: “Multiple time points can help us understand if the brain is stable, initially capturing differences that were present since childhood, or prematurely aging and able to predict the trajectory of someone’s cognitive decline. Identifying who is at greatest risk for future cognitive disability with a single MRI scan can be a powerful tool for helping patients with neurological conditions.”
Source:
Ford AL, Fellah S, Wang Y, Unger-Levinson K, Hagan M, Reis MN, Mirro A, Lewis JB, Ying C, Guilliams KP, Fields ME, An H, King AA, Chen Y. (2025) “Brain age modelling and cognitive outcomes in young adults with and without sickle cell anemia.” JAMA Network Open, 17 January 2025, doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.53669.
Link: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2829361
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