Project: Brain Age Prediction – Diagnostic method or reconceptualizing age

Acronym	BRAINTREE (Reference Number: ELSA_NEURON_2023-014)
Project Topic	This project investigates the social and ethical aspects of machine-learning based estimation of individual’s age using brain magnetic resonance images (MRI) of a normative population, coined with the term “brain age”. Brain age prediction (BAP) is a novel and powerful tool for neurology, psychiatry and beyond. Novel neuroscientific results and technologies affect established psychological and anthropological concepts, as in the caseof ‘free will‘, or ‘self‘. Similarly brain age prediction is likely to affect the concept of age. The project will generate a empirically informed and comprehensive analysis of the social and ethical dimension of BAP. It will comprise three parts: 1) Investigation whether and how BAP can differentiate normative ageing from ageing-associated disorders; how it can accommodate lifetime factors trajectories in "healthy" and "pathological" ageing; critical appraisal of existing machine- and deep-learning frameworks for brain age prediction. 2) Analysis of the communication and understanding of BAP. Using qualitative measure we analyze the potential impact of this emerging application on society and individuals and how people make sense of this new technology to inform its development and dissemination. 3) Ethical analysis of the medical ethics of using brain age prediction in the clinic and of the social impact, which might arise, if brain age prediction really contributed to a pathologization and consequent stigmatization of age and the ageing.
Network	NEURON Cofund2
Call	ELSA-JTC 2023 "Neuroethics"

Project partner

Number	Name	Role	Country
1	Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH in der Helmholtz Gemeinschaft	Coordinator	Germany
2	Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois	Partner	Switzerland
3	Shih Hsin University	Partner	Taiwan