DAE

Abstract

What is ageing? One hypothesis is that ageing is global systemic degradation of multiple organ systems. Based on this assumption we propose a linear model which attempts to infer an individual's "physiological" age from multiple clinical measurements. Inference is performed using the variational Bayes approximation using the Infer.NET framework, a Microsoft Research project akin to WinBUGS. We apply the model to around 6000 individuals in the Twins UK study and look for gene expression levels and SNPs as- sociated with ageing "delta": the dierence between an individual's physiological and chronological age.

We propose an extension allowing non-linear variation of the clinical variables with age using a mixture of experts model. Finally we question whether a model with multiple dimensions of ageing might more closely resemble reality.