Abstract
BACKGROUND: Serum neurofilament light chain (sNfL) and glial fibrillary acidic protein (sGFAP) are promising biomarkers for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) disease activity. There is less known about their association with the symptomatic phenotypes such as depression and mental health outcomes.
OBJECTIVES: To investigate the association between sNfL and sGFAP and Patient-Reported Outcome (PRO) measures for depression and overall mental health in individuals with MS (iwMS).
METHODS: Participants completed the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CESD) and MS Quality of Life-54 (MSQOL-54)- at the time of the blood draw. Linear regression was used to estimate the association between the PRO measures as the outcome and the log-transformed biomarkers as the predictor. The association between baseline biomarkers and longitudinal change in PROs was estimated using linear mixed-effect models.
RESULTS: Cross-sectional analysis showed a significant correlation between sNFL and CES-D (p = 0.035) and MSQOL-54 Mental Health Composite (MHC) (p = 0.003) scores. This association remained statistically significant after adjusting for sex, age, EDSS and MS treatment. Neither cross-sectional nor longitudinal analysis of sGFAP levels showed significant correlation with PROs scores.
CONCLUSION: Serum NfL is associated with depression and overall mental health scores in iwMS. We did not find a significant relationship between sGFAP and PRO measures.