Interpretable machine learning for precision cognitive aging.

Introduction: Machine performance has surpassed human capabilities in various tasks, yet the opacity of complex models limits their adoption in critical fields such as healthcare. Explainable AI (XAI) has emerged to address this by enhancing transparency and trust in AI decision-making. However, a persistent gap exists between interpretability and performance, as black-box models, such as deep neural networks, often outperform white-box models, such as regression-based approaches. To bridge this gap, the Explainable Boosting Machine (EBM), a class of generalized additive models has been introduced, combining the strengths of interpretable and high-performing models. EBM may be particularly well-suited for cognitive health research, where traditional models struggle to capture nonlinear effects in cognitive aging and account for inter- and intra-individual variability.

Methods: This cross-sectional study applies EBM to investigate the relationship between demographic, environmental, and lifestyle factors, and cognitive performance in a sample of 3,482 healthy older adults. The EBM's performance is compared against Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machines, Random Forests, Multilayer Perceptron, and Extreme Gradient Boosting, evaluating predictive accuracy and interpretability.

Results: The findings reveal that EBM provides valuable insights into cognitive aging, surpassing traditional models while maintaining competitive accuracy with more complex machine learning approaches. Notably, EBM highlights variations in how lifestyle activities impact cognitive performance, particularly differences between engaging in and refraining from specific activities, challenging regression-based assumptions. Moreover, our results show that the effects of lifestyle factors are heterogeneous across cognitive groups, with some individuals demonstrating significant cognitive changes while others remain resilient to these influences.

Discussion: These findings highlight EBM's potential in cognitive aging research, offering both interpretability and accuracy to inform personalized strategies for mitigating cognitive decline. By bridging the gap between explainability and performance, this study advances the use of XAI in healthcare and cognitive aging research.