Comparison of brain imaging and physical health between research and clinical neuroimaging cohorts of ageing

Objectives: To compare brain MRI measures between Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) participants who underwent research, clinical, or both MRI scans, and clinical health measures across the groups and non-MRI subjects.

Methods: Retrospective cohort study leveraging MRI, clinical, demographic, and medication data from ACT. Three neuroradiologists reviewed MRI scans using NIH Neuroimaging Common Data Elements (CDEs). Total brain and white matter hyperintensity (WMH) volumes, clinical characteristics, and outcome measures of brain and overall health were compared between groups. 1166 MRIs were included (77 research, 1043 clinical, and 46 both) and an additional 3146 participants with no MRI were compared.

Results: Compared to the group with research MRI only, the clinical MRI group had higher prevalence of the following: acute infarcts, chronic haematoma, subarachnoid haemorrhage, subdural haemorrhage, haemorrhagic transformation, and hydrocephalus (each P < .001). Quantitative WMH burden was significantly lower (P < .001) and total brain volume significantly higher (P < .001) in research MRI participants compared to other MRI groups. Prevalence of hypertension, self-reported cerebrovascular disease, congestive heart failure, dementia, and recent hospitalization (all P < .001) and diabetes (P = .002) differed significantly across groups, with smaller proportions in the research MRI group.

Conclusion: In ageing populations, significant differences were observed in MRI metrics between research MRI and clinical MRI groups, and clinical health metric differences between research MRI, clinical MRI, and no-MRI groups.

Advances in knowledge: This questions whether research cohorts can adequately represent the greater ageing population undergoing imaging. These findings may also be useful to radiologists when interpreting neuroimaging of ageing.