In a study published in SLEEP, EEGs were used to gather clinically relevant information for personalized patient health evaluations and a comprehensive assessment of sleep. In the study, a deep neural network (DNN) model was trained to predict the age of patients using raw EEG signals.

The researchers found that DNNs can accurately predict the brain age of healthy patients. So, it makes me wonder, if brain age can be determined using medical tests with some level of accuracy, what could it mean to our aging population? Think about what the brain does as it ages, many people experience atrophy of the brain, atherosclerosis, etc. which can and often does lead to declines both physically and mentally.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, researchers are our friends and we should appreciate their hard work at trying to improve the quality of life for the aging population. Maybe, just maybe, in the near future, we can predict declines for residents based on an EEG study and have an opportunity to slow the process down! Stay well, stay informed, and stay tuned!