What this means
Researchers grouped people with depression by lifestyle and fitness, then looked at their brain age. One group showed extra brain aging in several regions. This study cannot show that lifestyle causes these brain changes.
Plain-English summary written by an AI model from the abstract. The original is below.
- Who it was tested in
- 896 adults with depression and 36,206 without, from UK Biobank
- Kind of research
- A study
The science
- Original title
- Lifestyle and BrainAGE in adult depression.
- Authors
- Sanford N, Yu Y, Ge R et al.
- Journal
- Translational psychiatry
- Published
- Oct 22, 2026
- Study type
- Study · in humans
- PMID
- 42907451 ↗
Abstract
This study investigates how heterogeneity in lifestyle and physical fitness shapes patterns of brain ageing in depression. The study sample included medically healthy adults from the UK Biobank (44-82 years) with a history of depression (n = 896) and non-psychiatric controls (n = 36,206). Heterogeneity through Discriminative Analysis (HYDRA) was used to derive data-driven subgroups within the depression sample based on 224 behavioural and physical health features. Global and voxel-based brain-age-gap-estimates (brainAGE) computed from structural neuroimaging data were used for personalized assessment of brain ageing. Four depression clusters were identified: the "balanced-active" cluster (n = 253) characterized by an active lifestyle and balanced diet; the "low metabolic risk-active" cluster (n = 178) characterized by a health-conscious dietary and exercise lifestyle; the "high metabolic risk-sedentary" cluster (n = 315) who had higher body mass, poor diet, and sedentary behaviour; and the "frailty-moderately active" cluster (n = 150) who had a varied diet but coupled with physical frailty. Mood symptoms were lowest in the "balanced-active" cluster and highest in the "high metabolic risk-sedentary" cluster. While depression overall was associated with minimally accelerated global and local brain ageing in fronto-limbic regions, the "high metabolic risk-sedentary" cluster showed additional, regionally specific acceleration in prefrontal, parahippocampal, and thalamic areas. This work underscores the importance of lifestyle and fitness heterogeneity when examining associations between depression and neurobiological ageing and supports lifestyle-informed stratification as a pathway toward more targeted intervention strategies.
Sanford N, Yu Y, Ge R et al. Lifestyle and BrainAGE in adult depression. Translational psychiatry. 2026. doi:10.1038/s41398-026-04297-8. PMID: 42907451. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42907451/
Related research
Development of an AI-Enabled Remote Loneliness Assessment System for Older Adults Using Behavioral and Speech Data From IoT Sensors and Smart Speakers.
Loneliness is a critical risk factor for adverse health outcomes in older adults, yet remains under-detected due to social stigma, time constraints, and reliance on episodic self-report.
How activity is measured changes its link to gut bacteria in breast cancer survivors
Researchers compared three ways of measuring activity and fitness with gut bacteria. Wearing a motion tracker matched gut bacteria diversity better than self-reports did.
Longitudinal associations of trajectories of physical activity and sitting time with depression during middle-to-older adulthood.
OBJECTIVES: Vulnerability to depression symptoms often increases from late middle adulthood into older adulthood and can significantly impact daily functioning.
How activity, sitting, and sleep relate to biological aging clocks
This study looked at how movement, sitting time, and sleep quality link to measures of aging in the body. It shows links at one point in time, so it cannot prove cause and effect.
See all research on Too much sitting →