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Sex-based memory advantages and cognitive aging: a challenge to the cognitive reserve construct?

ABSTRACT: Education and related proxies for cognitive reserve (CR) are confounded by associations with environmental factors that correlate with cerebrovascular disease possibly explaining discrepancies between studies examining their relationships to cognitive aging and dementia. In contrast, sex-related memory differences may be a better proxy. Since they arise developmentally, they are less likely to reflect environmental confounds. Women outperform men on verbal and men generally outperform women on visuospatial memory tasks. Furthermore, memory declines during the preclinical stage of AD, when it is clinically indistinguishable from normal aging. To determine whether CR mitigates age-related memory decline, we examined the effects of gender and APOE genotype on longitudinal memory performances. Memory decline was assessed in a cohort of healthy men and women enriched for APOE ?4 who completed two verbal [Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT), Buschke Selective Reminding Test (SRT)] and two visuospatial [Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test (CFT), and Benton Visual Retention Test (VRT)] memory tests, as well as in a separate larger and older cohort [National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center (NACC)] who completed a verbal memory test (Logical Memory). Age-related memory decline was accelerated in APOE ?4 carriers on all verbal memory measures (AVLT, p=.03; SRT p<.001; logical memory p<.001) and on the VRT p=.006. Baseline sex associated differences were retained over time, but no sex differences in rate of decline were found for any measure in either cohort. Sex-based memory advantage does not mitigate age-related memory decline in either APOE ?4 carriers or non-carriers.

SUBMITTER: Caselli RJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4785799 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Sex-based memory advantages and cognitive aging: a challenge to the cognitive reserve construct?

Caselli Richard J RJ Dueck Amylou C AC Locke Dona E C DE Baxter Leslie C LC Woodruff Bryan K BK Geda Yonas E YE

Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society : JINS 20150209 2

Education and related proxies for cognitive reserve (CR) are confounded by associations with environmental factors that correlate with cerebrovascular disease possibly explaining discrepancies between studies examining their relationships to cognitive aging and dementia. In contrast, sex-related memory differences may be a better proxy. Since they arise developmentally, they are less likely to reflect environmental confounds. Women outperform men on verbal and men generally outperform women on v ...[more]

PMID: 25665170

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Project description:In later adulthood brain pathology becomes common and trajectories of cognitive change are heterogeneous. Among the multiple determinants of late-life cognitive course, cognitive reserve has been proposed as an important factor that modifies or buffers the impact of brain pathology on cognitive function. This article presents and investigates a novel method for measuring and investigating such factors. The core concept is that in a population where pathology is common and variably present, 'reserve' may be defined as the difference between the cognitive performance predicted by an individual's level of pathology and that individual's actual performance. By this definition, people whose measured cognitive performance is better than predicted by pathology have high reserve, whereas those who perform worse than predicted have low reserve. To test this hypothesis, we applied a latent variable model to data from a diverse ageing cohort and decomposed the variance in a measure of episodic memory into three components, one predicted by demographics, one predicted by pathology as measured by structural MRI and a 'residual' or 'reserve' term that included all remaining variance. To investigate the plausibility of this approach, we then tested the residual component as an operational measure of reserve. Specific predictions about the effects of this putative reserve measure were generated from a general conceptual model of reserve. Each was borne from the results. The results show that the current level of reserve, as measured by this decomposition approach, modifies rates of conversion from mild cognitive impairment to dementia, modifies rates of longitudinal decline in executive function and, most importantly, attenuates the effect of brain atrophy on cognitive decline such that atrophy is more strongly associated with cognitive decline in subjects with low reserve than in those with high reserve. Decomposing the variance in cognitive function scores offers a promising new approach to the measure and study of cognitive reserve.

Dataset Information

Sex-based memory advantages and cognitive aging: a challenge to the cognitive reserve construct?

Publications

Sex-based memory advantages and cognitive aging: a challenge to the cognitive reserve construct?

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