Kernel-Ridge-Regression-Based Randomized Network for Brain Age Classification and Estimation

<p dir="ltr">Accelerated brain aging and abnormalities are associated with variations in brain patterns. Effective and reliable assessment methods are required to accurately classify and estimate brain age. In this study, a brain age classification and estimation framework is proposed using structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) scans, a 3-D convolutional neural network (3-D-CNN), and a kernel ridge regression-based random vector functional link (KRR-RVFL) network. We used 480 brain MRI images from the publicly availabel IXI database and segmented them into gray matter (GM), white matter (WM), and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) images to show age-related associations by region. Features from MRI images are extracted using 3-D-CNN and fed into the wavelet KRR-RVFL network for brain age classification and prediction. The proposed algorithm achieved high classification accuracy, 97.22%, 99.31%, and 95.83% for GM, WM, and CSF regions, respectively. Moreover, the proposed algorithm demonstrated excellent prediction accuracy with a mean absolute error (MAE) of <b>3.89</b> years, <b>3.64 </b>years, and <b>4.49</b> years for GM, WM, and CSF regions, confirming that changes in WM volume are significantly associated with normal brain aging. Additionally, voxel-based morphometry (VBM) examines age-related anatomical alterations in different brain regions in GM, WM, and CSF tissue volumes.</p><h2>Other Information</h2><p dir="ltr">Published in: IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems<br>License: <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en" target="_blank">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</a><br>See article on publisher's website: <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/tcds.2024.3349593" target="_blank">https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/tcds.2024.3349593</a></p>