# Age Prediction Performance Varies Across Deep, Superficial, and Cerebellar White Matter Connections

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.07398 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.07398/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 11 of its 37 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Nov 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [Swin Transformer: Hierarchical Vision Transformer using Shifted Windows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14030/) (2021)
- [mixup: Beyond Empirical Risk Minimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.09412/) (2017)
- [A ConvNet for the 2020s](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.03545/) (2022)
- [CutMix: Regularization Strategy to Train Strong Classifiers with Localizable Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.04899/) (2019)
- [Xception: Deep Learning with Depthwise Separable Convolutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02357/) (2016)
- [Improved Regularization of Convolutional Neural Networks with Cutout](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.04552/) (2017)
- [Revisiting Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data in Deep Learning Era](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.02968/) (2017)
- [Understanding the Effective Receptive Field in Deep Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1701.04128/) (2017)
- [Scaling Up Your Kernels to 31x31: Revisiting Large Kernel Design in CNNs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.06717/) (2022)
- [Model and predict age and sex in healthy subjects using brain white matter features: A deep learning approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.03595/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Hierarchical Spatio-Temporal State-Space Modeling for fMRI Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.13074/) (2024)
- [Age Sensitive Hippocampal Functional Connectivity: New Insights from 3D CNNs and Saliency Mapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.01411/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The brain's white matter (WM) undergoes developmental and degenerative processes during the human lifespan. To investigate the relationship between WM anatomical regions and age, we study diffusion magnetic resonance imaging tractography that is finely parcellated into fiber clusters in the deep, superficial, and cerebellar WM. We propose a deep-learning-based age prediction model that leverages large convolutional kernels and inverted bottlenecks. We improve performance using novel discrete multi-faceted mix data augmentation and a novel prior-knowledge-based loss function that encourages age predictions in the expected range. We study a dataset of 965 healthy young adults (22-37 years) derived from the Human Connectome Project (HCP). Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model achieves a mean absolute error of 2.59 years and outperforms compared methods. We find that the deep WM is the most informative for age prediction in this cohort, while the superficial WM is the least informative. Overall, the most predictive WM tracts are the thalamo-frontal tract from the deep WM and the intracerebellar input and Purkinje tract from the cerebellar WM.