title: Educational level influences regional cerebral blood flow in patients with Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Medical College, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 704, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Nan-Tsing
authors.initials: NT
authors.lastname: Chiu
authors.forename: Bi-Fang
authors.initials: BF
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Sigmund
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hsiao
authors.forename: Ming-Chyi
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Pai
mesh_terms: 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