Mapping Heterogeneous Region- and Tissue-Specific Brain Ageing Patterns Using Quantitative MRI

Brain ageing involves microstructural changes that vary across tissue types and even within regions of those tissues, leading to functional and cognitive alterations. Quantitative MRI offers sensitivity to tissue properties, enabling the identification of differential ageing patterns and distinguishing physiological ageing from pathological changes. In this study, we analysed qMRI quantitative MRI data from 293 healthy adults (median age: 52; interquartile range: 36–66; age range: 18–79 years). We applied a multiparametric quantitative MRI approach, including longitudinal relaxation rate (R1), apparent transverse relaxation rate (R2*), and Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping, to model normal ageing effects on quantitative qMRI metrics across regions using second-order polynomial regression, adjusting for sex, education, and cognition. Our study therefore presents exploratory mapping of region- and tissue-specific ageing patterns across brain grey and white matter using multiparametric quantitative MRI, offering insights to support future normative healthy ageing research. In this collection, you can find the calculated qMRI metrics and codes used for the statistical analyses, as well as references to open-source codes employed in this study.