Sex-specific clinical and neurobiological correlates of fatigue in older adults

Abstract

Fatigue is a common and distressful symptom in older people and has been associated with adverse health outcomes. Nevertheless, its sex-specific pathophysiological underpinnings and clinical correlates have been scarcely investigated. We aimed to comprehensively explore the clinical and neurobiological determinants of fatigue in cognitively unimpaired older adults. A sex-stratified analysis was conducted to look for differences in the clinical expression of fatigue among women and men. Data on cognitively normal individuals were gathered from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) 2 study. Fatigue was defined based on self-report at baseline. For each participant, information on sociodemographics, comorbidities, mood, cognitive performance, frailty, and biomarkers of brain pathology was collected. Logistic regression models, stratified by sex, were conducted to explore the factors associated with fatigue. Among the 291 participants selected, 44 subjects (15.1% of the total sample) self-reported fatigue at baseline. Subjects reporting fatigue were more likely women, had higher frailty degrees, and more severe depressive symptoms than those without fatigue. Moreover, they tended to have lower MRI hippocampus volumes. Among women, those reporting fatigue exhibited higher frailty levels, worse depression, and lower MRI hippocampus volumes relative to those without fatigue. Higher frailty degrees were also observed in men reporting vs. non-reporting fatigue. In the adjusted logistic regression model, more severe depression (OR 1.64, 95% CI 1.18–2.28; p < 0.01) and lower MRI hippocampus volumes (OR 0.41, 95% CI 0.19–0.90; p = 0.03) resulted independently associated with fatigue in women, while higher frailty degrees (OR 3.10, 95% CI 1.27–7.54 per 0.1 increase in a 39-item Frailty index; p = 0.01) in men. Fatigue is a complex symptom with a sex-specific pattern of clinical and neurobiological correlates. A better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of these associations is warranted to develop sex-informed approaches for personalized treatments.