The relationship between neuroinflammation and clinical features of dementia: An investigation of GFAP levels in Alzheimer's disease and related disorders
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Neuroinflammation has been recognized as an important element in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementias. Glial fibrillary acid (GFAP) is an astrocytic cytoskeletal protein that reflects neuroinflammation. Our study investigated levels of GFAP in serum and clinical features of individuals with AD, vascular dementia (VaD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and vascular MCI (V-MCI) in comparison to a cognitively unimpaired (CU) group. Our goal was to reveal the relationship between neuroinflammation and clinical features of these groups, such as degree of brain vascular disease. METHODS: We investigated individuals with AD (n = 60); VaD (n = 65), MCI (n = 179), V-MCI (n = 122) and cognitively unimpaired controls (CU; n = 88). Normal GFAP range for older adults has been suggested as 40.7-228 pg/ml. We divided participants into tertiles categorized as low (≤113.05 pg/mL), medium (113.05-184.9 pg/mL), and high (185 - 461 pg/mL). Cumulative link modeling (CLM) was used to investigate the relationship between the GFAP and age, sex, diagnostic group, history of smoking, number of comorbidities (those associated with inflammation), body mass index (BMI), nutrition score, sleep quality index, peripheral inflammation - measured by Interleukin-6 (IL-6) and C - reactive protein (CRP) levels, and Fazekas scale for a measure of periventricular and subcortical white matter damage on MRI. RESULT: We found significant main effects between GFAP groups and age, diagnosis of AD, diagnosis of VaD, MoCA, sex, CRP and BMI. Pairwise comparisons revealed significant differences between all GFAP groups, age, and MoCA scores. Low and medium GFAP levels were related to CRP levels. Low and medium, and low and high GFAP levels were related to BMI. No differences were found between GFAP status and nutrition, sleep, smoking, number of comorbidities, Fazekas scale and diagnosis of MCI or V-MCI. CONCLUSION: Neuroinflammation (GFAP levels) increases as individuals age, but to a greater extent in the presence of cognitive impairment (especially AD and VaD groups). Levels of peripheral inflammation (CRP) and BMI, were inversely associated with neuroinflammation. Elevated GFAP levels were not related to increased MRI white matter lesions or other elements of vascular disease. Further studies will investigate these complex relationships.
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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 | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| 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".