Robust Brain Age Estimation via Regression Models and MRI-derived Features

Abstract: The determination of biological brain age is a crucial biomarker in the assessment of neurological disorders and understanding of the morphological changes that occur during aging. Various machine learning models have been proposed for estimating brain age through Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of healthy controls. However, developing a robust brain age estimation (BAE) framework has been challenging due to the selection of appropriate MRI-derived features and the high cost of MRI acquisition. In this study, we present a novel BAE framework using the Open Big Healthy Brain (OpenBHB) dataset, which is a new multi-site and publicly available benchmark dataset that includes region-wise feature metrics derived from T1-weighted (T1-w) brain MRI scans of 3965 healthy controls aged between 6 to 86 years. Our approach integrates three different MRI-derived region-wise features and different regression models, resulting in a highly accurate brain age estimation with a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 3.25 years, demonstrating the framework's robustness. We also analyze our model's regression-based performance on gender-wise (male and female) healthy test groups. The proposed BAE framework provides a new approach for estimating brain age, which has important implications for the understanding of neurological disorders and age-related brain changes.