Relationship of sex differences in cortical thickness and memory among cognitively healthy subjects and individuals with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer disease

BACKGROUND: An aging society has increased rates of late onset Alzheimer disease dementia (ADD), the most common form of age-related dementia. This neurodegenerative disease disproportionately affects women. METHODS: We use data from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) to examine sex differences in cortical thickness (CT) and memory performance. Analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) models were used to examine effects of sex and diagnosis (DX) on CT and verbal memory. For regions demonstrating significant interaction effects of sex and DX, we tested whether sex moderated cognition-thickness relationships. We used machine learning as a complementary method to explore multivariate CT differences between women and men. RESULTS: Women demonstrated greater CT in many brain regions. More specifically, men showed relatively consistent CT declines in all stages, from normal control (NC) to ADD in the bilateral cingulate cortex, bilateral temporal regions, and left precuneus; women had more stable CT in these regions between NC and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) stages, but sharper declines from MCI to ADD. Similarly, for the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT), ANCOVA analyses showed that women had significantly better immediate and delayed recall scores than men, at NC and MCI stages, but greater differences, cross-sectionally, from MCI to ADD than men. We found significant sex moderation effects between RAVLT-immediate scores and CT of right isthmus-cingulate for all subjects across DX. Partial correlation analyses revealed that increased CT of right isthmus-cingulate was associated with better verbal learning in women, driven by positron emission tomography defined amyloid positive (Aβ+) subjects. Significant sex-moderation effects in cognition-thickness relationships were further found in the right middle-temporal, left precuneus, and left superior temporal regions in Aβ+ subjects. Using a machine learning approach, we investigated multivariate CT differences between women and men, showing an accuracy in classification of 75% for Aβ+ cognitively NC participants. CONCLUSIONS: Sex differences in memory and CT can play a key role in the different vulnerability and progression of ADD in women compared to men. Machine learning indicates sex differences in CT are most relevant early in the ADD neurodegeneration. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13195-022-00973-1.