Enhancing Brain Age Estimation with a Multimodal 3D CNN Approach Combining Structural MRI and AI-Synthesized Cerebral Blood Volume Data

Motivation: An aging population calls for better ways to understand brain aging's impact on cognitive health and neurological disorders. Current brain age estimation models using T1w MRI lack functional insights, limiting their potential. Goal(s): To improve brain age prediction by integrating structural T1w MRI with AI-derived Cerebral Blood Volume (AICBV), a non-invasive functional biomarker. Approach: Using a 3D CNN-VGG architecture, we combined the predicted ages from T1w MRI and AICBV-derived functional data with linear regression. Results: The integrated model outperformed traditional T1w-only models, showing a lower mean absolute error of 3.95 and higher R² of 0.943, promising enhanced clinical utility for brain health assessment. Impact: By integrating functional AICBV data with structural T1w MRI, this study enhances brain age estimation, offering a non-invasive, cost-effective tool for early diagnosis of cognitive decline. It opens new research avenues in neurodegenerative disease detection and personalized brain health assessments.