Cognitively Normal Women With Alzheimer’s Disease Proteinopathy Show Relative Preservation of Memory but Not of Hippocampal Volume

Authors

Jessica Z.K. Caldwell, Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain HealthFollow
Jeffrey L. Cummings, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Sarah J. Banks, Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health
Sebastian Palmqvist, Lund University
Oskar Hansson, Lund University

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-26-2019

Publication Title

Alzheimer's Research and Therapy

Publisher

BMC

Volume

11

First page number:

1

Last page number:

10

Abstract

Background: We examined interactive effects of sex, diagnosis, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) amyloid beta/phosphorylated tau ratio (Aβ/P-tau) on verbal memory and hippocampal volumes. Methods: We assessed 682 participants (350 women) from BioFINDER (250 cognitively normal [CN]; and 432 symptomatic: 186 subjective cognitive decline [SCD], 246 mild cognitive impairment [MCI]). General linear models evaluated effects of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) proteinopathy (CSF Aß/p-tau ratio), diagnosis, and sex on verbal memory (ADAS-cog 10-word recall), semantic fluency (animal naming fluency), visuospatial skills (cube copy), processing speed/attention functions (Symbol Digit Modalities Test and Trail Making Part A), and hippocampal volumes. Results: Amyloid-positive (Aβ/P-tau+) CN women (women with preclinical AD) showed memory equivalent to amyloid-negative (Aβ/P-tau−) CN women. In contrast, Aβ/P-tau+ CN men (men with preclinical AD) showed poorer memory than Aβ/P-tau− CN men. Symptomatic groups showed no sex differences in effect of AD proteinopathy on memory. There was no interactive effect of sex, diagnosis, and Aβ/P-tau on other measures of cognition or on hippocampal volume. Conclusions: CN women show relatively preserved verbal memory, but not general cognitive reserve or preserved hippocampal volume in the presence of Aβ/P-tau+. Results have implications for diagnosing AD in women, and for clinical trials.

Keywords

Subjective cognitive decline; Mild cognitive impairment; Hippocampus; Sex; Women; Verbal memory

Disciplines

Cognitive Neuroscience | Nervous System Diseases

File Format

pdf

File Size

675 KB

Language

English

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Repository Citation

Caldwell, J. Z., Cummings, J. L., Banks, S. J., Palmqvist, S., Hansson, O. (2019). Cognitively Normal Women With Alzheimer’s Disease Proteinopathy Show Relative Preservation of Memory but Not of Hippocampal Volume. Alzheimer's Research and Therapy, 11 1-10. BMC.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13195-019-0565-1