Association between inflammation and cognition: Triangulation of evidence using a population-based cohort and Mendelian randomization analyses

• Published in: Brain, behavior, and immunity behavior, and immunity, 2023-05, Vol.110, p.30-42
• Main Authors: Slaney, Chloe, Sallis, Hannah M., Jones, Hannah J., Dardani, Christina, Tilling, Kate, Munafò, Marcus R., Davey Smith, George, Mahedy, Liam, Khandaker, Golam M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; ALSPAC; C-Reactive Protein - metabolism; Child; Cognition; Cross-Sectional Studies; CRP; Emotion recognition; Full-length; Genome-Wide Association Study; GlycA; Humans; IL-6; Inflammation; Inflammation - genetics; Interleukin-6 - genetics; Longitudinal Studies; Mendelian randomization; Mendelian Randomization Analysis; Observational; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide - genetics; Receptors, Interleukin-6; Response inhibition; Working memory; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0889-1591; 1090-2139
• DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2023.02.010

•Little evidence of causal associations of inflammatory markers (CRP, GlycA, IL-6, IL-6R, sIL-6R) and cognition in Mendelian randomization analyses in ALSPAC.•Little evidence of causal effect of same inflammatory markers on general cognitive ability in Mendelian randomization analyses.•General cognitive ability may be causally associated with lower inflammation.•Larger genome-wide association studies on individual cognitive domains are needed. Inflammation is associated with cognitive functioning and dementia in older adults, but whether inflammation is related to cognitive functioning in youth and whether these associations are causal remains unclear. In a population-based cohort (Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children; ALSPAC), we investigated cross-sectional associations of inflammatory markers (C-reactive protein [CRP], Interleukin-6 [IL-6] and Glycoprotein acetyls [GlycA]) with measures of cold (working memory, response inhibition) and hot (emotion recognition) cognition at age 24 (N = 3,305 in multiple imputation models). Furthermore, we conducted one-sample and two-sample bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses to examine potential causal effects of genetically-proxied inflammatory markers (CRP, GlycA, IL-6, IL-6 receptor, soluble IL-6 receptor) on cognitive measures (above) and on general cognitive ability. In the ALSPAC cohort, there was limited evidence of an association between standardised inflammatory markers and standardised cognitive measures at age 24 after adjusting for potential confounders (N = 3,305; beta range, −0.02 [95 % confidence interval (CI) −0.06 to 0.02, p = 0.27] to 0.02 [95 % CI −0.02 to 0.05, p = 0.33]). Similarly, we found limited evidence of potential effects of 1-unit increase in genetically-proxied inflammatory markers on standardised working memory, emotion recognition or response inhibition in one-sample MR using ALSPAC data (beta range, −0.73 [95 % CI −2.47 to 1.01, p = 0.41] to 0.21 [95 % CI −1.42 to 1.84, p = 0.80]; or on standardised general cognitive ability in two-sample MR using the latest Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) datasets (inverse-variance weighted beta range, −0.02 [95 % CI −0.05 to 0.01, p = 0.12] to 0.03 [95 % CI −0.01 to 0.07, p = 0.19]). Our MR findings do not provide strong evidence of a potential causal effect of inflammatory markers (CRP, IL-6, IL-6 receptor, GlycA) on the cognitive functions examined here. Given the large confidence intervals in the one-sample MR, large