Age Predictors Through the Lens of Generalization, Bias Mitigation, and Interpretability: Reflections on Causal Implications

Abstract

Chronological age predictors often fail to achieve out-of-distribution (OOD) gen- eralization due to exogenous attributes such as race, gender, or tissue. Learning an invariant representation with respect to those attributes is therefore essential to improve OOD generalization and prevent overly optimistic results. In predic- tive settings, these attributes motivate bias mitigation; in causal analyses, they appear as confounders; and when protected, their suppression leads to fairness. We coherently explore these concepts with theoretical rigor and discuss the scope of an interpretable neural network model based on adversarial representation learning. Using publicly available mouse transcriptomic datasets, we illustrate the behavior of this model relative to conventional machine learning models. We observe that the outcome of this model is consistent with the predictive results of a published study demonstrating the effects of Elamipretide on mouse skeletal and cardiac muscle. We conclude by discussing the limitations of deriving causal interpretation from such purely predictive models.