Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2006 Sep;77(9):1060-3.
doi: 10.1136/jnnp.2006.094714. Epub 2006 May 18.

Schooling mediates brain reserve in Alzheimer's disease: findings of fluoro-deoxy-glucose-positron emission tomography

R Perneczky  1 , A Drzezga, J Diehl-Schmid, G Schmid, A Wohlschläger, S Kars, T Grimmer, S Wagenpfeil, A Monsch, A Kurz
Affiliations

Schooling mediates brain reserve in Alzheimer's disease: findings of fluoro-deoxy-glucose-positron emission tomography

R Perneczky et al. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2006 Sep.

Abstract

Background: Functional imaging studies report that higher education is associated with more severe pathology in patients with Alzheimer's disease, controlling for disease severity. Therefore, schooling seems to provide brain reserve against neurodegeneration.

Objective: To provide further evidence for brain reserve in a large sample, using a sensitive technique for the indirect assessment of brain abnormality (18F-fluoro-deoxy-glucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET)), a comprehensive measure of global cognitive impairment to control for disease severity (total score of the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease Neuropsychological Battery) and an approach unbiased by predefined regions of interest for the statistical analysis (statistical parametric mapping (SPM)).

Methods: 93 patients with mild Alzheimer's disease and 16 healthy controls underwent 18F-FDG-PET imaging of the brain. A linear regression analysis with education as independent and glucose utilisation as dependent variables, adjusted for global cognitive status and demographic variables, was conducted in SPM2.

Results: The regression analysis showed a marked inverse association between years of schooling and glucose metabolism in the posterior temporo-occipital association cortex and the precuneus in the left hemisphere.

Conclusions: In line with previous reports, the findings suggest that education is associated with brain reserve and that people with higher education can cope with brain damage for a longer time.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None.

References

    1. Bennett D A, Schneider J A, Wilson R S.et al Education modifies the association of amyloid but not tangles with cognitive function. Neurology 200565953–955. - PubMed
    1. Scarmeas N, Albert S M, Manly J J.et al Education and rates of cognitive decline in incident Alzheimer's disease. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 200677308–316. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Herholz K, Salmon E, Perani D.et al Discrimination between Alzheimer dementia and controls by automated analysis of multicenter FDG PET. Neuroimage 200217302–316. - PubMed
    1. McKhann G, Folstein M, Katzman R.et al Clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: report of the NINCDS‐ADRDA work group under the auspices of Department of Health and Human Services Task Force on Alzheimer's Disease. Neurology 198434939–944. - PubMed
    1. Drzezga A, Lautenschlager N, Siebner H.et al Cerebral metabolic changes accompanying conversion of mild cognitive impairment into Alzheimer's disease: a PET follow‐up study. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 2003301104–1113. - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms