Facci Laura, Sandrini Laura, Bottini Gabriella
Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, 27100 Pavia, Italy.
Cognitive Neuropsychology Centre, ASST Grande Ospedale Metropolitano Niguarda, 20172 Milan, Italy.
Brain Sci. 2025 Jul 19;15(7):770. doi: 10.3390/brainsci15070770.
: The prognostic uncertainty of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) imposes comprehensive neuropsychological evaluations beyond mere memory assessment. However, previous investigations into other cognitive domains, such as attention, have yielded divergent findings. Furthermore, while evidence suggests the presence of sex differences across the spectrum of dementia-related conditions, no study has systematically explored attentional disparities between genders within this context. The current study aims to investigate differences in the attentional subcomponents, i.e., alerting, orienting, and executive control, between patients with MCI and healthy older controls (HOCs), emphasizing interactions between biological sex and cognitive impairment. : Thirty-six participants (18 MCI, and 18 HOCs) were evaluated using the Attention Network Test (ANT). Raw RTs as well as RTs corrected for general slowing were analyzed using Generalized Mixed Models. : Both health status and sex influenced ANT performance, when considering raw RTs. Nevertheless, after adjusting for the baseline processing speed, the effect of cognitive impairment was no longer evident in men, while it persisted in women, suggesting specific vulnerabilities in females not attributable to general slowing nor to the MCI diagnosis. Moreover, women appeared significantly slower and less accurate when dealing with conflicting information. Orienting and alerting did not differ between groups. : To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study investigating sex differences in attentional subcomponents in the aging population. Our results suggest that previously reported inconsistencies about the decline of attentional subcomponents may be attributable to such diversities. Systematically addressing sex differences in cognitive decline appears pivotal for informing the development of precision medicine approaches.
轻度认知障碍（MCI）的预后不确定性使得除了单纯的记忆评估之外，还需要进行全面的神经心理学评估。然而，先前对其他认知领域（如注意力）的研究结果却存在分歧。此外，虽然有证据表明在与痴呆相关的各种病症中存在性别差异，但尚无研究在这种背景下系统地探讨性别之间的注意力差异。本研究旨在调查MCI患者与健康老年对照者（HOCs）在注意力子成分（即警觉、定向和执行控制）方面的差异，重点关注生物性别与认知障碍之间的相互作用。36名参与者（18名MCI患者和18名HOCs）使用注意力网络测试（ANT）进行评估。使用广义混合模型分析原始反应时间（RTs）以及针对一般反应减慢进行校正后的RTs。考虑原始RTs时，健康状况和性别均影响ANT表现。然而，在调整基线处理速度后，认知障碍对男性的影响不再明显，而在女性中仍然存在，这表明女性存在特定的易损性，这并非归因于一般反应减慢或MCI诊断。此外，女性在处理冲突信息时明显更慢且准确性更低。两组之间的定向和警觉没有差异。据我们所知，这是第一项研究老年人群注意力子成分性别差异的研究。我们的结果表明，先前报道的关于注意力子成分下降的不一致情况可能归因于此类差异。系统地解决认知衰退中的性别差异对于为精准医学方法的发展提供信息似乎至关重要。
