UD researchers find brain stiffness measurements are reliable predictors

For the first time, Curtis Johnson, associate professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Delaware and Austin Brockmeier, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, computer and information sciences, and a resident faculty member of UD’s Data Science Institute, along with three current and former UD students, have shown that combining artificial intelligence and MRE techniques is a reliable way to predict the age of a healthy brain and could be used to identify structural differences that indicate departure from the normal aging process.

Two University of Delaware researchers — Curtis Johnson (left), associate professor of biomedical engineering, and Austin Brockmeier (right), assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering — have found that measuring brain stiffness is a reliable way to predict brain age. In these images, you see a scan of a young adult’s brain in the top row and an older adult’s brain in the bottom row. The brain’s basic anatomy is shown in the scan on the left, its stiffness on the right. The younger brain is much stiffer than the older brain, with the warmer colors reflecting that stiffness.

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