• Javier Santonja, Francisco J Román, Kenia Martínez, Sergio Escorial, Juan Álvarez-Linera, Jesús Privado, Mª Ángeles Quiroga, Emiliano Santarnecchi, Yasser Iturria-Medina, and Roberto Colom.
• Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain; Program in Neuroscience, Autonoma de Madrid University, Madrid 28029, Spain.
• Neuroscience. 2021 Jul 15; 467: 81-90.

AbstractBiological (BA) and chronological (CA) age may or may not fit. The available evidence reveals remarkable individual differences in the overlap/mismatch between BA and CA. Increased mismatch can be interpreted as delayed (BA/CA < 1) or accelerated biological aging (BA/CA > 1). Body and brain health are correlated and both predict aging outcomes associated with physical and mental fitness. Moreover, research has shown that older brain age at midlife correlates negatively with cognitive ability measured in early childhood, which suggests early life predisposition to accelerated aging in adulthood. Under this framework, here we test if increased cognitive ability is associated with delayed brain aging, analyzing structural MRI data of 188 individuals, sixty of whom were recruited from MENSA, an association comprising individuals who obtained cognitive ability scores in the top 2 percent of the population. These high ability individuals (HCA) showed an average advantage of 33 IQ points, on a fluid reasoning test they completed for this research, over those other recruited because of their average cognitive ability (ACA). Next, brain age was computed at the individual level for two distinguishable neocortical features (thickness and surface area) according to models trained in an independent large-scale sample of 2377 individuals. Results revealed a stronger pattern of accelerated brain aging in HCA compared to ACA individuals for thickness, while the opposite pattern was suggested for surface area. The findings align well with the greater relevance of individual differences in cortical surface area for enhancing our understanding of cognitive differences at the brain level.Copyright © 2021 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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