Educational level influences regional cerebral blood flow in patients with Alzheimer's disease.
We tested the hypothesis that educational level influences regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients.


METHODS
The severity of AD was measured with the Cognitive Ability Screening Instrument (age and education adjusted). rCBF was assessed using (99m)Tc-hexamethylpropyleneamine oxime brain SPECT; differences in rCBF between groups with different educational levels were determined using statistical parametric mapping (SPM).


RESULTS
In matched low-education (< or =6 y; n = 29) and high-education (>6 y; n = 29) groups, SPM revealed 2 statistically significant clusters of voxels with higher rCBF in the high-education group: one in the left lateral inferior, middle, and superior temporal gyrus; another in the left medial temporal area to the left inferior frontal gyrus.


CONCLUSIONS
We provide biologic evidence that education may lead to relatively higher rCBF in specific areas in AD patients, which may explain the effects of education on clinical manifestations of AD.
Chiu
Nan-Tsing
NT
Department of Nuclear Medicine, Medical College, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 704, Taiwan.
Lee
Bi-Fang
BF
Hsiao
Sigmund
S
Pai
Ming-Chyi
MC
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D012307:Risk Factors; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology