Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38539590›Full record

ArticleBrain sciences2024

Sex Differences in Conversion Risk from Mild Cognitive Impairment to Alzheimer's Disease: An Explainable Machine Learning Study with Random Survival Forests and SHAP.

Alessia Sarica, Assunta Pelagi, Federica Aracri, Fulvia Arcuri, Aldo Quattrone, Andrea Quattrone, For The Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Brain sciences, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
9citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
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

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Sex differences inFrontiers in dementia · 2025
    Pooled it
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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

7 authors.

Alessia SaricaNeuroscience Research Center, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, Magna Graecia University, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy.ORCID 0000-0003-1362-6718
Assunta PelagiNeuroscience Research Center, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, Magna Graecia University, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy.ORCID 0009-0009-0704-3525
Federica AracriNeuroscience Research Center, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, Magna Graecia University, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy.
Fulvia ArcuriNeuroscience Research Center, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, Magna Graecia University, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy.
Aldo QuattroneNeuroscience Research Center, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, Magna Graecia University, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy.
Andrea QuattroneNeuroscience Research Center, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, Magna Graecia University, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy.
For The Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging InitiativeNeuroscience Research Center, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, Magna Graecia University, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) exhibits sex-linked variations, with women having a higher prevalence, and little is known about the sexual dimorphism in progressing from Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) to AD. The main aim of our study was to shed light on the sex-specific conversion-to-AD risk factors using Random Survival Forests (RSF), a Machine Learning survival approach, and Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAP) on dementia biomarkers in stable (sMCI) and progressive (pMCI) patients. With this purpose, we built two separate models for male (M-RSF) and female (F-RSF) cohorts to assess whether global explanations differ between the sexes. Similarly, SHAP local explanations were obtained to investigate changes across sexes in feature contributions to individual risk predictions. The M-RSF achieved higher performance on the test set (0.87) than the F-RSF (0.79), and global explanations of male and female models had limited similarity (<71.1%). Common influential variables across the sexes included brain glucose metabolism and CSF biomarkers. Conversely, the M-RSF had a notable contribution from hippocampus, which had a lower impact on the F-RSF, while verbal memory and executive function were key contributors only in F-RSF. Our findings confirmed that females had a higher risk of progressing to dementia; moreover, we highlighted distinct sex-driven patterns of variable importance, uncovering different feature contribution risks across sexes that decrease/increase the conversion-to-AD risk.

Indexed as

Alzheimer’s diseaserandom survival forestssex differences

Identifiers

PMID38539590
PMCPMC10968106

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Registered trials

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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.