Critical Assessment of a Multimodal Pipeline for Studying Cognitive Resilience in Aging Bats: Insights from Data Integration Failures

Abstract: To elucidate the neural mechanisms of cognitive resilience in the exceptionally long-lived Egyptian fruit bat, this study aimed to integrate precise DNA methylation age, brain structural integrity (total brain volume from b=0 diffusion tensor imaging), and specific spatial memory measures from a foraging paradigm. Our planned multimodal analysis involved a four-stage pipeline: data harmonization, behavioral feature engineering, brain volume quantification, and integrative statistical modeling using multiple linear regression on a cohort of 33 bats. While initial data harmonization was successful, critical errors in subsequent stages rendered the analysis uninterpretable. Specifically, behavioral feature engineering failed due to unforeseen raw data format discrepancies, resulting in uniformly invalid cognitive metrics. Consequently, although brain volume was extracted, it could not be meaningfully integrated with the corrupted behavioral data for hypothesis testing. The intended statistical models, therefore, produced scientifically invalid results, precluding any conclusions regarding age-cognition-brain relationships and underscoring the paramount importance of rigorous data validation and robust processing pipelines in complex multimodal investigations.

Subjects:	q-bio.NC; q-bio.QM
Cite as:	PX:2508.00036