Surface-based brain age index reflects hematological impacts on cognitive development in children with beta-thalassemia major
Brain development changes in thalassemia children correlate with blood iron levels, offering a measurable early indicator to guide disease management.
This study uses a novel surface-based graph neural network (SurfGNN) to compute brain age index from structural MRI in 25 beta-thalassemia major children versus 40 controls, finding delayed brain age and lower cognitive scores that correlate with hemoglobin and ferritin. The brain age index mediates the hematological-cognitive relationship, suggesting it as a sensitive early biomarker for monitoring CNS effects of hematologic disease.
What the study was
- Study design
- Cross-sectional cohort with GNN model development
- Population
- Children with beta-thalassemia major (ages 6-15) vs healthy controls
- Sample size
- 65
- Category
- Diagnostics
- Maturity
- Exploratory
- Journal
- iScience
Why it surfaced
Rare hematologic disease (beta-TM) + ML + neurocognitive outcomes crossover. PMC open access. Small n=25 patients; exploratory.
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