arXiv：cs.AI· Wasif Khan, Panayiotis V. Benos, Joshua K. Wong, Ruogu Fang·· 4 小时前AI 评分32
因果发现揭示 UK Biobank 中体力活动与痴呆风险的关联路径
Causal discovery identifies pathways linking physical activity to dementia risk in the UK BioBank
AI 导读
研究将 LLM 引导的因果发现与中介分析结合，在 UK Biobank 42,293 名 60 岁及以上老年人中识别出体力活动（MVPA）降低痴呆风险的路径。抑郁是核心中介路径，占 MVPA 与痴呆风险总体关联的 15.1%。性别分层显示女性以代谢和功能路径为主，男性则涉及吸烟与心血管疾病的行为和心血管代谢级联。
正文
Abstract:Physical Activity (PA) is consistently associated with lower risk of dementia, yet the mechanism linking PA to dementia prevention remain incomopletely understood. Here, we integrate large language model (LLM)-guided causal discovery with mediation analysis in 42,293 older adults aged 60 years or older from the UK Biobank to systematically identify pathways connecting objectively measured moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) to dementia risk. Across behavioral, psychological, functional, and clinical domains, causal discovery consistently identified interconnected pathways linking higher MVPA to lower dementia risk through depression, functional capacity, smoking behavior, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, and brain injury. Chain mediation analyses further identified depression as a central pathway, accounting for 15.1% of the overall association between MVPA and dementia risk. Sex-stratified analyses revealed distinct mechanistic patterns, with females exhibiting predominantly metabolic and functional pathways, while males showed behavioral and cardiometabolic cascades involving smoking and cardiovascular disease. Together, these findings suggest that the protective association between PA and dementia is mediated through interconnected behavioral, psychological, and cardiometabolic processes rather than a single pathway. Depression emerged as a prominent and potentially modifiable pathway, highlighting opportunities for integrating dementia prevention strategies that combine PA promotion with mental health and cardiovascular risk management.
| Comments: | Under submission |
| Subjects: | Neurons and Cognition (q-bio.NC); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI) |
| Cite as: | arXiv:2610.02221 [q-bio.NC] |
| (or arXiv:2610.02221v1 [q-bio.NC] for this version) | |
| https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2610.02221 arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite |
Submission history
From: Wasif Khan [view email]
[v1]
Sat, 12 Sep 2026 16:18:31 UTC (3,059 KB)
来源：arXiv：cs.AI · arxiv.org