Schooling mediates brain reserve in Alzheimer's disease: findings of fluoro-deoxy-glucose-positron emission tomography.
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.
Perneczky
R
R
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Technische Universität München, München, Germany. robert.perneczky@lrz.tum.de
Drzezga
A
A
Diehl-Schmid
J
J
Schmid
G
G
Wohlschläger
A
A
Kars
S
S
Grimmer
T
T
Wagenpfeil
S
S
Monsch
A
A
Kurz
A
A
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000150:complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000523:psychology*; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply; D001923:Brain Chemistry; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D005947:Glucose / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D008297:Male; D008609:Mental Status Schedule; D008875:Middle Aged; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D012039:Regional Blood Flow; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012720:Severity of Illness Index
D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D005947:Glucose