Association between plasma neurofilament light chain levels and cognition in early Parkinson's disease
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Plasma neurofilament light chain (NfL) levels reflect large calibre myelinated axonal loss; and has been proposed as a blood‐based biomarker for neurodegeneration in dementia and parkinsonian disorders. Recent studies have suggested an association between increased plasma NfL levels and worse global cognition in Parkinson’s Disease (PD) patients. However, its relationship with specific cognitive domains remain unclear. This study thus aims to investigate the association between plasma NfL and cognitive domains in early PD. Method Plasma NfL was measured using Quanterix’s Single Molecule Array (Simoa) technology in a total of 197 subjects (175 early PD patients and 22 healthy controls). Cognitive function was assessed using a standard battery of neuropsychological tests. This included the Mini‐Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) as tests of global cognition, as well as two tests for each of five relevant cognitive domains, namely episodic memory, language, working memory, visuospatial, and executive function. Result PD patients had higher plasma NfL levels (mean=16.3 pg/ml, SD=8.59) compared to healthy controls (mean=12.2 pg/ml, SD=4.18) (p=.023). Amongst PD patients, increased NfL levels associated significantly with worse global cognition scores (MMSE: b=‐1.11 p=.009; MoCA: b=‐1.27, p=.026). In particular, higher levels of plasma NfL significantly correlated with poorer episodic memory (b=‐.541, p=.003) and executive function scores (b=‐.427, p=.002). No significant associations were found between plasma NfL and cognitive measures in healthy controls. Conclusion Higher plasma NfL levels were found in PD patients compared to healthy controls and associated significantly with poorer global cognitive function in PD. Interestingly, higher NfL levels correlated with worse episodic memory and executive function. These results implicate plasma NfL’s role as a potential biomarker for cognition in PD. Further studies are required to validate these findings.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".