Advanced brain age in deployment-related traumatic brain injury: A LIMBIC-CENC neuroimaging study.
Emily L Dennis, Brian A Taylor, Mary R Newsome and 22 others
PMID 35125044WHAT IT FOUND
In male veterans, a history of deployment-related mild traumatic brain injury was associated with a brain appearing 0.95 years older than expected.
No such link was found in females or in longitudinal data. Higher PTSD, depression, and alcohol misuse scores were also associated with older brain age.
Key findings
01A history of deployment-related mild TBI was associated with an increase in brain age of 0.95 years in males.
02Higher scores for PTSD, depression, and alcohol misuse were significantly associated with older predicted brain age.
03The primary cross-sectional analysis found no significant difference in brain age between those with and without a history of deployment-related mild TBI when sex was not separated.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample of females with deployment-related mild TBI was very small and unevenly distributed across sites, making the sex-specific findings unreliable. The longitudinal follow-up was short (average 1.6 years) and the participants were relatively young, which may not be enough time to detect accelerated aging. The 'brain age' metric is a single number that does not specify which brain features are driving the score or the underlying mechanism. The study relied on self-reported history of TBI and comorbidities, which may be subject to recall bias or underreporting, particularly for domestic violence and military sexual trauma. The control group included individuals with non-deployment mild TBI, some of whom had histories of domestic violence, which complicates the comparison.
Declared interests
The study was supported by the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). No specific conflicts of interest involving commercial entities were declared in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that mild TBI causes accelerated brain aging over time. The longitudinal analysis found no significant association between TBI history and faster aging. The cross-sectional finding of older brain age in males is a snapshot comparison, not proof of progressive decline, and it did not hold up in the female subgroup after correcting for site imbalances.