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Fractal regulation and incident Alzheimer's disease in elderly individuals
Author(s) -
Li Peng,
Yu Lei,
Lim Andrew S.P.,
Buchman Aron S.,
Scheer Frank A.J.L.,
Shea Steven A.,
Schneider Julie A.,
Bennett David A.,
Hu Kun
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.713
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1552-5279
pISSN - 1552-5260
DOI - 10.1016/j.jalz.2018.03.010
Subject(s) - dementia , cohort , alzheimer's disease , cognition , percentile , gerontology , cognitive decline , medicine , psychology , audiology , disease , physical medicine and rehabilitation , neuroscience , statistics , mathematics
Healthy physiological systems exhibit fractal regulation (FR), generating similar fluctuation patterns in physiological outputs across different time scales. FR in motor activity is degraded in dementia, and the degradation correlates to cognitive decline. We tested whether degraded FR predicts Alzheimer's dementia. Methods FR in motor activity was assessed in 1097 nondemented older adults at baseline. Cognition was assessed annually for up to 11 years. Results Participants with an FR metric at the 10th percentile in this cohort had a 1.8‐fold Alzheimer's disease risk (equivalent to the effect of being ∼5.2 years older) and 1.3‐fold risk for mild cognitive impairment (equivalent to the effect of being ∼3.0 years older) than those at the 90th percentile. Consistently, degraded FR predicted faster cognitive decline. These associations were independent of physical activity, sleep fragmentation, and stability of daily activity rhythms. Discussion FR may be a useful tool for predicting Alzheimer's dementia.