New Prenuvo AI Research Presented at RSNA Reveals More Muscle and Less Visceral Fat Slows Brain Aging

Prenuvo, the leader in whole body MRI for proactive health screening, today announced new research presented at the 2025 Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), unveiling that higher muscle volume and lower visceral fat tracks with younger brain age in healthy adults. The findings leverage Prenuvo’s whole body MRI protocols and newly developed AI models to explore how the body and brain age together, offering new insight into how proactive imaging can help illuminate long-term cognitive health.

The study, led by Cyrus A. Raji, M.D., Ph.D., a neuroradiologist and scientific collaborator with Prenuvo, examined 1,164 healthy participants who were scanned using Prenuvo’s whole body MRI protocol. Using a combination of advanced segmentation models and neural-network-based brain-age estimation, researchers found:

• Higher total normalized muscle volume is significantly associated with both lower chronological age and lower brain age.
  
  
• Higher visceral fat-to-muscle ratio is strongly associated with higher chronological and brain age, even after adjusting for sex.
  
  
• Subcutaneous fat showed no significant association, underscoring“hidden belly fat” as the more clinically relevant factor.
  
  
• Muscle mass and visceral fat measured through whole body MRI serve as meaningful biomarkers of cognitive aging.
  
  

“Our research shows that what happens in the body is deeply reflected in the brain,” said Dr. Cyrus Raji, senior author of the study. “Higher muscle mass and lower visceral fat measured objectively through whole body MRI are linked to younger-looking brains. These are modifiable factors. This work lays the foundation for using MRI insights from the body as a roadmap to help individuals preserve brain health.”

The study’s brain-age model was trained on 5,500 independent T1-weighted MRI scans, and then applied to the 1,164 participants in this analysis. This enabled researchers to predict “brain age”, or how old the brain appears structurally, relative to chronological age. The body scans utilized Prenuvo’s comprehensive coronal T1 whole body MRI sequences, providing detailed quantification of muscle, visceral fat, and subcutaneous fat. As GLP-1 medications reshape conversations around weight management, the ability to quantify fat loss versus muscle loss becomes increasingly important.

For Prenuvo, the study demonstrates how proactive, radiation-free, whole-body MRI can provide insights into emerging biomarkers before symptoms arise, helping individuals understand how daily choices may influence long-term brain and metabolic health.

“Findings like these make the rationale for proactive imaging increasingly compelling,” said Dr. Alex Exuzides, VP of Medical Affairs & Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) at Prenuvo. “Muscle loss and visceral fat gain happen quietly over years, yet both exert meaningful influence on trajectories of brain aging. For the first time, we can measure these factors objectively through a single whole-body MRI. This level of precision provides individuals with an evidence-based assessment of their long-term cognitive health, and the opportunity to intervene while it still matters.”

“Traditional MRI has been used reactively for decades, but this work demonstrates that the human body contains far more clinically relevant signals long before symptoms appear,” said Sam Hashemi, Vice President of AI & Research at Prenuvo. “By combining whole-body MRI with purpose-built machine-learning models, we’re starting to reveal patterns that were previously invisible. This is the future of proactive health: giving people earlier, objective insight into how their bodies and brains are aging, and creating the opportunity to intervene while it still makes a difference.”

Read the full abstract here: https://www.rsna.org/media/press/2025/2614

About Prenuvo
Prenuvo makes proactive health screening seamless and more widely accessible. Combining advanced technology with radiation-free and non-invasive whole-body scans, Prenuvo’s patient-centric design is optimized to assess the body holistically, providing individuals with a comprehensive overview of their health in under 60 minutes. Prenuvo’s exclusively-affiliated Radiology group partners consist of 100+ radiologists who help risk-stratify each patient report, keeping in mind healthcare complexities from the patient’s perspective, the treating clinician’s perspective, and the healthcare system’s perspective.

Prenuvo clinics are currently open in New York, Buffalo, Redwood City, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Irvine, Dallas, Houston, Boca Raton, Chicago, Las Vegas, Bethesda (DC metro area), Atlanta, Vancouver, and Minneapolis. Learn more at www.prenuvo.com.

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Christine Alabastro

PR for Prenuvo

Prenuvo

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