Evidence map›Paper›PMID 35501561›Full record

ArticleNeurology and therapy2022

White Matter and Alzheimer's Disease: A Bidirectional Mendelian Randomization Study.

Yaqing Li, Jiaxin Zheng, Tian Li, Junjian Zhang

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Neurology and therapy, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed
1.3field-weighted citation impact, top 19% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

4 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.

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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Yaqing LiDepartment of Neurology, Zhongnan Hospital, Wuhan University, No. 169, Donghu Road, Wuhan, 430071, Hubei, China.
Jiaxin ZhengDepartment of Neurology, Zhongnan Hospital, Wuhan University, No. 169, Donghu Road, Wuhan, 430071, Hubei, China.
Tian LiDepartment of Neurology, Zhongnan Hospital, Wuhan University, No. 169, Donghu Road, Wuhan, 430071, Hubei, China.
Junjian ZhangDepartment of Neurology, Zhongnan Hospital, Wuhan University, No. 169, Donghu Road, Wuhan, 430071, Hubei, China. wdsjkx@163.com.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4557-5137
Wuhan University · CN

Funding

Hubei Provincial Central Guidance Local Science and Technology Development Project No. 2020ZYYD014National Natural Science Foundation of China No. 81771151National Natural Science Foundation of China No.82071210
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

introductionObservational studies have indicated widespread comorbidity of white matter (WM) lesions and Alzheimer's disease (AD) in the elderly, but the causality and direction of their relationship remained unclear. Our study aims to examine the bidirectional causal relationship between WM change and AD using a genetically informed method.

methodsWe performed a bidirectional two-sample mendelian randomization (MR) study to investigate the correlation of three WM phenotypes-white matter hyperintensities (WMH, N = 18,381), fractional anisotropy (FA, N = 17,673), and mean diffusivity (MD, N = 17,467)-with AD (N = 63,926) using summary statistics from genome-wide association studies (GWAS). The inverse variance weighted method (IVW) was used to evaluate the causal estimate and alternative methods to test the heterogeneity, horizontal pleiotropy, and outliers.

resultsThere was no significant causal evidence of WM MRI markers on AD across all MR methods. We identified significant evidence of causal effects of AD on the risk of WMH (OR 1.06, 95% CI 1.03-1.10, p < 0.01). The same direction of effects was observed in MR-Egger, weighted median, and weighted mode analysis. Besides, we also observed a risk causal relationship between AD with MD in MR-Egger, weighted median, and weighted mode-based methods (MR-Egger OR 1.38, 95% CI 1.07-1.79, p = 0.02; weighted median OR 1.21, 95% CI 1.02-1.45, p = 0.03; weighted mode-based OR 1.32, 95% CI 1.14-1.53, p < 0.01). However, the general significance of the causal effect of AD on WMH and MD disappeared when we removed the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) near the APOE regions, revealing that the ability of AD to increase the risk of white matter damage might be mediated by APOE to some extent. Unfortunately, we did not observe significant causal evidence of AD on FA across all MR analyses.

conclusionsIn this bidirectional MR study, we did not observe that WM injuries were associated with a higher risk of AD. Likewise, genetically predicted AD did not result in a causal effect on white matter damage. However, our research revealed that underlying mechanisms linking AD and white matter lesions might be related to the SNPs near APOE regions.

Indexed as

Alzheimer’s diseaseMendelian randomizationMRI markersWhite matter lesions

Identifiers

PMID35501561
PMCPMC9095794
OpenAlexW4225310697

What OpenQuestion holds

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.