Using dynamic microsimulation to project cognitive function in the elderly population

Yifan Wei; Hanke Heun-Johnson; Bryan Tysinger

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0274417

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJanuary 20, 2022
11 Apr 2022 Decision Letter - Lai Kuan Lee, Editor PONE-D-22-01856Using dynamic microsimulation to project cognitive function in the elderly populationPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Wei, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. ============================== Kindly enhance the discussion part by elaborating how dynamic microsimulation could enhance the cognitive function in elderly people. Future directions is needed for better research projection. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by May 26 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. 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The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent. In the ethics statement in the Methods and online submission information, please ensure that you have specified (1) whether consent was informed and (2) what type you obtained (for instance, written or verbal, and if verbal, how it was documented and witnessed). If your study included minors, state whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians. If the need for consent was waived by the ethics committee, please include this information. 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Additional Editor Comments (if provided): Dear Dr. Wei, The reviewers are commented on your submission. You are required to revise your manuscript accordingly and submit the revised article in a timely manner. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: This study is of great significance and has high clinical value. The FEM TICS27 model demonstrates its predictive accuracy for both two- and ten-year cognitive outcomes. I would like to know what the prediction results of other years are by this model? Thank you! Reviewer #2: İn this study present FEM TICS27’s model structure, variables, data sources, and conducts validation of its simulation outcomes against observed HRS data. Information about the method was insufficient in this article. According to the studies in the literature, it has increased performance. However, this study should explain why it differs from other studies. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274417.r001
Revision 1
17 Aug 2022 Author Response We thank the editors and reviewers for their time and attention in improving this manuscript. The comments strengthen the manuscript and add clarity, and we appreciate the opportunity to address these issues. To summarize the changes to the manuscript, we have copied the editor’s and reviewers’ comments below, along with our responses. For detailed responses to reviewers, please refer to the attached 'response to reviewers' file. Response to Editor 1. Kindly enhance the discussion part by elaborating how dynamic microsimulation could enhance the cognitive function in elderly people. We thank the reviewer for this excellent suggestion. We added a section in the Discussion to demonstrate more clearly FEM’s role in enhancing cognitive function in elderly population. We highlighted its usefulness in demonstrating value of treatment and identification of people at risk of cognitive impairment, which are two important components of potentially enhancing cognitive function in the elderly population. 2. Future directions is needed for better research projection. We would like to thank the reviewer for pointing out this omission. We edited the Discussion section, to include future research directions. We outline two approaches: 1) improving FEM TICS27’s performance by utilizing additional predictors; 2) applying FEM TICS27 to different contexts and countries to analyze differences in cognitive trajectory. Response to Reviewer 1 1. This study is of great significance and has high clinical value. The FEM TICS27 model demonstrates its predictive accuracy for both two- and ten-year cognitive outcomes. I would like to know what the prediction results of other years are by this model? Thank you! We appreciate the reviewer’s acknowledgment of our study’s significance. And we agree that it is important to show FEM TICS27’s performance across years. We added Table 6 to present FEM TICS27’s performance for 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 years in predicting dementia or dead with dementia, and refer to this table in the text. Response to Reviewer 2 1. In this study present FEM TICS27’s model structure, variables, data sources, and conducts validation of its simulation outcomes against observed HRS data. Information about the method was insufficient in this article. We agree with the reviewer that the validation strategy as originally presented in Methods section ‘d. Model validation approach’ may have been confusing. We clarified the approach by adding a high-level overview of the validation strategy in this section. We then continue to explain more technical details of our validation process in the paragraphs that follow. 2. According to the studies in the literature, it has increased performance. However, this study should explain why it differs from other studies. We added the following sentence to the Discussion: "The increased performance of FEM over other models is likely because it utilizes information on individual characteristics and behavior, like smoking, widowhood, and disease history". Unrelated to the editor’s or reviewers’ comments, we found we had incorrectly labeled one of the age categories in our original manuscript. Results were presented for both ages 53+ and 70+, but these should have been labeled with ages 53+ and 65+, respectively. The results remain the same. We have corrected the label in the manuscript and tables. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: response_to_reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274417.r002
30 Aug 2022 Decision Letter - Lai Kuan Lee, Editor Using dynamic microsimulation to project cognitive function in the elderly population PONE-D-22-01856R1 Dear Dr. Wei, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Lai Kuan Lee Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274417.r003
Formally Accepted
6 Sep 2022 Acceptance Letter - Lai Kuan Lee, Editor PONE-D-22-01856R1 Using dynamic microsimulation to project cognitive function in the elderly population Dear Dr. Wei: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Lai Kuan Lee Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274417.r004

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