Study links higher Brain Care Score to reduced retinal biological age in UK Biobank cohort

A large-scale analysis of UK Biobank data demonstrates that higher Brain Care Scores are associated with thicker neuroretinal layers and a younger retinal biological age, supporting the use of optical coherence tomography as a non-invasive biomarker of systemic and brain aging.

Researchers analyzed data from 28,657 UK Biobank participants who underwent optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging, including a subset of 14,656 individuals with metabolomic data.

The study constructed a 19-point Brain Care Score (BCS) incorporating physical, lifestyle, and social-emotional domains to evaluate systemic brain care.

Retinal biological aging was measured using the 'OCT age gap,' defined as the difference between chronological age and predicted retinal age calculated by a machine learning model trained on structural metrics.

Higher BCS was associated with thicker neuroretinal and photoreceptor layers, as well as a reduced retinal biological age gap, with every 5-unit increase in BCS correlating with a reduced retinal age gap.

Exploratory mediation analyses highlighted metabolic pathways primarily involving lipids, unsaturated fatty acids, and branched-chain amino acids as potential links between lifestyle-driven brain care and retinal structure.

The findings reinforce the anatomical and physiological paradigm of the retina as an accessible extension of the central nervous system that reflects systemic aging.

By linking a clinical lifestyle score (BCS) directly to structural retinal preservation, the study supports the potential of lifestyle interventions to slow physical markers of neural aging.

The successful deployment of an 'OCT age gap' model provides further validation for machine-learning-derived biological aging clocks.

The identification of lipid, unsaturated fatty acid, and branched-chain amino acid metabolic pathways could guide early-stage drug discovery targeting metabolic mediation of age-related neural decay.

Clinical validation of retinal-based aging clocks may drive investment and developmental interest toward non-invasive diagnostic tools in the longevity sector, offering cheaper and more scalable alternatives to epigenetic or deep-proteomic clocks.

Future clinical trials assessing whether pharmaceutical or targeted lifestyle interventions can directly reduce the OCT age gap, thereby establishing it as a validated surrogate endpoint for cognitive and systemic longevity therapies.