Accelerated ageing

The question

Could climate stressors change how our brains age?

People of the same chronological age can have different cognitive, functional and brain profiles. Centred on Latin American cohorts, this workstream develops computational ageing models to investigate how heat, air pollution and wider social and environmental conditions relate to these differences.

Our approach

Measuring change across the brain

Build two ageing clocks

Develop cognitive-functional and brain-age models using international reference datasets, including cognitive assessments, daily functioning and structural and functional brain measures.

Study local exposure

Apply the models to geocoded ReDLat and Brazilian High Risk Cohort data. Compare residential heat and PM₂.₅ exposure with broader country-level environmental and social conditions.

Connect models with biology

Integrate Workstream 1 biomarkers with cognitive-functional and brain-age gaps to investigate pathways linking environmental exposures with neurological change.

Proposed WS-2 study design and analytical pipeline. The global datasets support model development; Latin American cohorts support the exposure analyses. Project figure supplied by the BRAIN-CLIMA team. Select figure to enlarge.

What we aim to deliver

Planned outputs

Cognitive-functional age-gap and brain-age-gap models
Analyses of local and regional vulnerability
Reproducible modelling tools and research publications

Age-gap estimates are research measures, not individual diagnoses. Together with Workstream 1, they will contribute evidence for the policy-facing tools in Workstream 3.

Workstream leadership

Dr Josefina Cruzat

Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat), Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez

Dr Robbie Parks

Columbia University