GWAS summary statistics for brain age gap

This Zenodo repository contains genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics and polygenic score (PGS) weights from our study "Genome-wide analysis of brain age identifies 59 associated loci and unveils relationships with mental and physical health". This work builds upon our previous medRxiv preprint. Our analysis code is provided on GitHub. The individual-level data used in this study were obtained from the UK Biobank (imaging release v1.10) and LIFE-adult cohort study.

GWAS summary statistics

We provide GWAS summary statistics for brain age gap, an MRI-based marker quantifying deviations between biological and chronological age. Analyses were conducted for grey matter (gm), white matter (wm), and combined grey and white matter (gwm) brain age gap. The resulting summary statistics include:

brainage2025.discov.{gm,wm,gwm}.gz – discovery sample (n = 32,634; white-British ancestry)

brainage2025.replic.eur.{gm,wm,gwm}.gz – replication sample (n = 22,256; European ancestry)

brainage2025.replic.multi.{gm,wm,gwm}.gz – replication sample (n = 23,714; multi-ancestry)

brainage2025.full.eur.{gm,wm,gwm}.gz – discovery + replication sample (n = 54,890; European ancestry)

brainage2025.full.multi.{gm,wm,gwm}.gz – discovery + replication sample (n = 56,348; multi-ancestry)

The GWAS results are provided as gzip-compressed files in tab- and space-delimited format. Detailed column descriptions can be found in the accompanying README.txt file.

PGS weights

For polygenic score (PGS) calculations, we provide brainage2025.pgsweights.{gm,wm,gwm}.gz, which contain weights derived from applying SBayesRC to the combined European ancestry discovery and replication GWAS summary statistics (n = 52,890 after excluding a held-out sample of 2,000 individuals). PGS were found to explain 7-10% of the phenotypic variance in European ancestry individuals. Weights in column 'A1Effect' reflect joint variant effects and can be used directly for PGS calculation via 'plink2 --score', without requiring P-value thresholding or clumping.

Funding Statement

UK Biobank was established by the Wellcome Trust medical charity, Medical Research Council, Department of Health, Scottish Government and the Northwest Regional Development Agency. UK Biobank also received funding from the Welsh Government, British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK and Diabetes UK. This publication was supported by LIFE - Leipzig Research Centre for Civilization Diseases, University of Leipzig. LIFE was funded by means of the European Social Fund and the Free State of Saxony.