Background:
Children with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are at risk for impaired neurocognitive functioning. We investigated metabolomic associations with neurocognition in children with CKD.
Methods:
We leveraged data from the Chronic Kidney Disease in Children (CKiD) study and the Neurocognitive Assessment and Magnetic Resonance Imaging Analysis of Children and Young Adults with Chronic Kidney Disease (NiCK) study. CKiD is a multi-institutional cohort that enrolled children age 6 months to 16 years with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) 30-90ml/min/1.73m2 (n=569). NiCK is a single center cross-sectional study of participants aged 8-25 years with eGFR<90ml/min/1.73m2 (n=60) and matched healthy controls (n=67). Untargeted metabolomics quantification was performed on plasma (CKiD, 622 metabolites) and serum (NiCK, 825 metabolites) samples. Four neurocognitive domains were assessed (intelligence, attention regulation, working memory, and parent ratings of executive function). Repeat assessments were performed in CKiD at 2-year intervals. Linear regression and linear mixed-effects regression analyses adjusting for age, sex, delivery history, hypertension, proteinuria, CKD duration, and glomerular vs. non-glomerular diagnosis were used to identify metabolites associated with neurocognitive z-scores. Analyses were performed with and without adjustment for eGFR.
Results:
There were multiple metabolite associations with neurocognition observed in at least two of the analytic samples (CKiD baseline, CKiD follow-up, NiCK CKD). Most of these metabolites were significantly elevated in children with CKD compared to healthy controls in NiCK. Notable signals included associations with parental ratings of executive function: phenylacetylglutamine, indoleacetylglutamine, and trimethylamine N-oxide, - and with intelligence: gamma-glutamyl amino acids and aconitate.
Conclusions:
Several metabolites were associated with neurocognitive dysfunction in pediatric CKD, implicating gut microbiome-derived substances, mitochondrial dysfunction and altered energy metabolism, circulating toxins, and redox homeostasis.