Cognitive Activities During Adulthood Are More Important than Education in Building Reserve

Abstract

Cognitive reserve is thought to reflect life experiences. Which experiences contribute to reserve and their relative importance is not understood. Subjects were 652 autopsied cases from the Rush Memory and Aging Project and the Religious Orders Study. Reserve was defined as the residual variance of the regressions of cognitive factors on brain pathology and was captured in a latent variable that was regressed on potential determinants of reserve. Neuropathology variables included Alzheimer’s disease markers, Lewy bodies, infarcts, microinfarcts, and brain weight. Cognition was measured with six cognitive domain scores. Determinants of reserve were socioeconomic status (SES), education, leisure cognitive activities at age 40 (CA40) and at study enrollment (CAbaseline) in late life. The four exogenous predictors of reserve were weakly to moderately inter-correlated. In a multivariate model, all except SES had statistically significant effects on Reserve, the strongest of which were CA40 (β= .31) and CAbaseline (β= .28). The Education effect was negative in the full model (β= −.25). Results suggest that leisure cognitive activities throughout adulthood are more important than education in determining reserve. Discrepancies between cognitive activity and education may be informative in estimating late life reserve.

Life experience and demographic influences on cognitive function in older adults.

“…Wilson et al (Wilson, et al, 2012) evaluated this hypothesis by testing time-lagged correlations of recreational activities and cognition, and found specific protective effects of activity variables. Reed et al (Reed et al, 2011) similarly reported that recreational activity in mid-life and late life were independently associated with greater cognitive reserve in late life. Together, these findings support the importance of exploring the potential role of interventions that engage disparate populations in cognitive activities for addressing disparities in cognitive aging (Lachman, Agrigoroaei, Murphy, & Tun, 2010; Marquine, et al, 2012).…”

Cognitive reserve in the healthy elderly: cognitive and psychological factors

“…This discrepancy is possibly explained by the fact that all subjects in the present study had an above-average (high) level of education and reported high cognitive engagement in leisure activities as well as regular reading. As Reed et al [37], and Kavé et al [38] have shown, cognitive leisure activities and regular reading are more important than level of formal education for later cognitive functioning and CR proxies. This view is supported by the finding that, although education is related to CR, it does not necessarily slow cognitive decline in older age [39], while active cognitive lifestyle does [4,6].…”

Age-Related Cognitive Changes: The Importance of Modulating Factors

“…Very recent works support this lack of validity of formal education measurements particularly in older populations [133,134]. Although there are still not many studies administering culture-based tests to assess the effect of education on cognitive function in norexperimental situations do not seem to interfere with elderly peoples' everyday lives.…”