Brain reserve and cognitive decline: a non-parametric systematic review

Valenzuela, Michael; Sachdev, Perminder S.

doi:10.1017/s0033291706007744

Cited by 302 publications

(242 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Epidemiological studies have shown lower prevalence or incidence of dementia in elder population with high level of education (see Meng andD"Arcy, 2012 andValenzuela et al, 2006 for a review and meta-analysis). Furthermore, neuropsychological studies have reported better cognitive test performance (Plassman et al, 1995;Wilson et al, 2009) and reduced rate of cognitive decline (Albert et al, 1995;Alvarado et al, 2002;Anstey et al, 2003;Christensen et al, 1997;Evans et al, 1993;Farmer et al, 1995;Lyketsos et al, 1999;White et al, 1994) in elders with higher levels of education.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationships between years of education and gray matter volume, metabolism and functional connectivity in healthy elders

et al. 2013

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More educated elders are less susceptible to age-related or pathological cognitive changes. We aimed at providing a comprehensive contribution to the neural mechanism underlying this effect thanks to a multimodal approach. Thirtysix healthy elders were selected based on neuropsychological assessments and cerebral amyloid imaging, i.e. as presenting normal cognition and a negative florbetapir-PET scan. All subjects underwent structural MRI, FDG-PET and resting-state functional MRI scans. We assessed the relationships between years of education and i) gray matter volume, ii) gray matter metabolism and iii) functional connectivity in the brain areas showing associations with both volume and metabolism. Higher years of education were related to greater volume in the superior temporal gyrus, insula and anterior cingulate cortex and to greater metabolism in the anterior cingulate cortex. The latter thus showed both volume and metabolism increases with education. Seed connectivity analyses based on this region showed that education was positively related to the functional connectivity between the anterior cingulate cortex and the hippocampus as well as the inferior frontal lobe, posterior cingulate cortex and angular gyrus. Increased connectivity was in turn related with improved cognitive performances. Reinforcement of the connectivity of the anterior cingulate cortex with distant cortical areas of the frontal, temporal and parietal lobes appears as one of the mechanisms underlying education-related reserve in healthy elders.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationships between years of education and gray matter volume, metabolism and functional connectivity in healthy elders

et al. 2013

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“…In a recent review, Valenzuela and Sachdev (2006a) assessed the evidence on the relation between mental activity and dementia and reported that "six large longitudinal studies have now found that increased levels of leisure and mental activity in late life are associated with an approximate 50% lower incidence of dementia" (p. 450). In a further article, the same authors conducted a meta-analysis involving over 47,000 individuals and concluded that higher levels of brain reserve were related to decreased rates of cognitive decline in old age (Valenzuela & Sachdev, 2006b). These conclusions are not universally accepted, however; for example, Salthouse (2006) has pointed out that individuals with better functioning brains may be the ones to participate more fully in stimulating activities.…”

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confidence: 99%

Cognitive control and lexical access in younger and older bilinguals.

Bialystok

Craik

Luk

2008

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

652

771

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Ninety-six participants, who were younger (20 years) or older (68 years) adults and either monolingual or bilingual, completed tasks assessing working memory, lexical retrieval, and executive control. Younger participants performed most of the tasks better than older participants, confirming the effect of aging on these processes. The effect of language group was different for each type of task: Monolinguals and bilinguals performed similarly on working memory tasks, monolinguals performed better on lexical retrieval tasks, and bilinguals performed better on executive control tasks, with some evidence for larger language group differences in older participants on the executive control tasks. These results replicate findings from individual studies obtained using only 1 type of task and different participants. The confirmation of this pattern in the same participants is discussed in terms of a suggested explanation of how the need to manage 2 language systems leads to these different outcomes for cognitive and linguistic functions.

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“…Age is also a very strong independent predictor for leukoaraiosis. Education affects performance on some cognitive tests, as people with higher educational attainment tend to perform better (Valenzuela & Sachdev, 2006). For this analysis, education was categorized as follows: 0) less than high school, 1) completed high school (GED), 2) some college, and 3) completed college (4+ years).…”

Section: Covariatesmentioning

confidence: 99%