brain pathology

Study: High Cognitive Reserve (CR) seen to significantly lower dementia risk even in the presence of high Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) neuropathology

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Fig­ure 2. Inci­dence Rates of Demen­tia per 1000 Per­son-Years by Cog­ni­tive Reserve (CR) Ter­tile and Brain Pathol­o­gy; adjust­ed for age, sex, smok­ing, alco­hol con­sump­tion, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, body mass index, heart dis­ease, hyper­ten­sion, cere­brovas­cu­lar dis­ease, dia­betes, and apolipopro­tein E e4. AD indi­cates Alzheimer dis­ease. Source: Xu H et al (2020)

Lifes­pan Cog­ni­tive Reserve—A Secret to Cop­ing With Neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive Pathol­o­gy (JAMA Neu­rol­o­gy editorial):

Giv­en the lim­it­ed suc­cess of ther­a­peu­tic inter­ven­tions for Alzheimer dis­ease, there is increased inter­est in under­stand­ing whether mod­i­fi­able fac­tors can help cope with or post­pone the appear­ance of brain pathol­o­gy. It is esti­mat­ed that about 35% of Alzheimer risk is mod­i­fi­able. Epi­demi­o­log­ic stud­ies have shown that life­time expo­sures to high­er edu­ca­tion, high­er occu­pa­tion­al attain­ment, and cog­ni­tive­ly stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties are asso­ci­at­ed with reduced risk of Alzheimer demen­tia. Autop­sy stud­ies have shown interindi­vid­ual dif­fer­ences in the amount of brain pathol­o­gy peo­ple can tol­er­ate before man­i­fest­ing cog­ni­tive impair­ments, and autop­sied brains of about one-third of indi­vid­u­als who are cog­ni­tive­ly nor­mal meet neu­ropatho­log­i­cal cri­te­ria for Alzheimer dis­ease. [Read more…] about Study: High Cog­ni­tive Reserve (CR) seen to sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er demen­tia risk even in the pres­ence of high Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (AD) neuropathology

Study challenges the “seductive” amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD)

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Vas­cu­lar Health at Age 36 Tied to Brain Health at 70 (Med­page Today):

“A lon­gi­tu­di­nal study shed light on just how ear­ly peo­ple may want to start doing some­thing to reduce their demen­tia risk decades in the future.

Each 1% increase in Fram­ing­ham vas­cu­lar risk score at age 36 was asso­ci­at­ed with 9% high­er white mat­ter hyper­in­ten­si­ty vol­ume … (how­ev­er) Vas­cu­lar risk scores were not linked to beta-amy­loid sta­tus at any point. [Read more…] about Study chal­lenges the “seduc­tive” amy­loid hypoth­e­sis of Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD)

Q: What do people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anxiety have in common? A: A brain with similar gray-matter loss

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graymatter_comparison

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Dif­fer­ent men­tal dis­or­ders cause same brain-mat­ter loss, study finds (press release):

“A meta-analy­sis of 193 brain-imag­ing stud­ies shows sim­i­lar gray-mat­ter loss in the brains of peo­ple with diag­noses as dif­fer­ent as schiz­o­phre­nia, depres­sion and addiction…The find­ings call into ques­tion a long­stand­ing ten­den­cy to dis­tin­guish psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders chiefly by their symp­toms rather than their under­ly­ing brain pathol­o­gy. [Read more…] about Q: What do peo­ple with schiz­o­phre­nia, bipo­lar dis­or­der, depres­sion, addic­tion, obses­sive-com­pul­sive dis­or­der, and anx­i­ety have in com­mon? A: A brain with sim­i­lar gray-mat­ter loss