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The eye, and especially the aging eye, often furnishes clinicians with key information about neurological health and the brain, and new research suggests the reverse holds true for the health connection. A metric called the Brain Care Score, recently developed by the McCance Center for Brain Health at Massachusetts General Hospital, is a novel tool for assessing brain health that includes physical, lifestyle and social-emotional factors. Higher scores on the 21-point scale indicate better brain function.
Why the Brain Care Score Eye Connection Matters
Studies have reported that a five-point higher baseline score was linked with a decreased incidence of dementia, stroke and depression, and baseline scores have also shown strong correlation with neuroimaging markers. Until now, though, no study had determined whether this relationship extended to the long-term incidence of age-related eye diseases specifically.
How Researchers Investigated the Question
To answer this question, as well as whether these associations change with advancing age, researchers in Sichuan and Hong Kong performed a longitudinal cohort study of UK Biobank participants. They also investigated the modifying effects of age and genetic susceptibility, with their findings published recently in the journal Eye.
Study Design Behind the Brain Care Score Eye Findings
A total of 382,221 participants without cataract, glaucoma or AMD at baseline were included in the study. The researchers used statistical analysis to estimate associations between baseline Brain Care Score and incident cataract, glaucoma and AMD, applying polygenic risk scores to test gene-score interactions relevant to the Brain Care Score eye relationship.
Scale of the Cohort Data
The researchers reported 44,033 cataract cases, 9,280 glaucoma cases and 6,754 AMD cases over a median follow-up period of 14.28 years, giving the study substantial statistical power to detect meaningful associations between brain health scores and eye disease incidence.
Key Findings on the Brain Care Score Eye Link
Compared with the lowest baseline Brain Care Score level, the highest was linked with a lower risk of cataract (HR: 0.89), glaucoma (HR: 0.92) and AMD (HR: 0.9), establishing a clear protective association across all three major age-related eye conditions studied.
Age-Related Differences in the Association
Stronger associations of per five-unit increase in baseline score with incident cataract and glaucoma were seen in study subjects aged 40 to 50 compared to older groups, suggesting the relationship may be particularly meaningful for identifying risk earlier in adulthood, before eye disease incidence typically peaks.
Genetic Interactions Within the Brain Care Score Eye Research
The researchers observed a significant interaction between baseline score and polygenic risk score for cataract, but not for glaucoma or AMD. This selective genetic interaction suggests that the relationship may operate through different biological pathways depending on the specific eye condition in question.
What This Selective Interaction Suggests
The absence of a similar gene-score interaction for glaucoma and AMD indicates that lifestyle and brain health factors captured by the Brain Care Score may influence cataract risk partly through genetic susceptibility, while their protective effects against glaucoma and AMD may operate more independently of an individual’s genetic risk profile.
What the Brain Care Score Eye Findings Mean Going Forward
The researchers concluded that a good baseline score is linked to a lower risk of developing cataract, glaucoma and AMD. They recommend further studies to explore the roles of the score, aging and genetic susceptibility in the development of age-related eye diseases, suggesting this connection could eventually inform integrated approaches to preventive care that address brain and eye health simultaneously.
