title: Gender and education impact on brain aging: a general cognitive factor approach.
abstract: In cognitive aging research, the study of a general cognitive factor has been shown to have a substantial explanatory power over the study of isolated tests. The authors aimed at differentiating the impact of gender and education on global cognitive change with age from their differential impact on 4 psychometric tests using a new latent process approach, which intermediates between a single-factor longitudinal model for sum scores and an item-response theory approach for longitudinal data. The analysis was conducted on a sample of 2,228 subjects from PAQUID, a population-based cohort of older adults followed for 13 years with repeated measures of cognition. Adjusted for vascular factors, the analysis confirmed that women performed better in tests involving verbal components, while men performed better in tests involving visuospatial skills. In addition, the model suggested that women had a slightly steeper global cognitive decline with oldest age than men, even after excluding incident dementia or death. Subjects with higher education exhibited a better mean score for the 4 tests, but this difference tended to attenuate with age for tests involving a speed component.
authors.affiliation: Biostatistics Department, INSERM U897.
authors.forename: Cécile
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Proust-Lima
authors.affiliation: Universite Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2.
authors.forename: Hélène
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Amieva
authors.affiliation: Universite Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2.
authors.forename: Luc
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-3274-937X
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Letenneur
authors.affiliation: Universite Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2.
authors.forename: Jean-Marc
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Orgogozo
authors.affiliation: Biostatistics Department, INSERM U897.
authors.forename: Hélène
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jacqmin-Gadda
authors.affiliation: Universite Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2.
authors.forename: Jean-François
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Dartigues
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D006801:Humans; D008136:Longevity; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics; D012737:Sex Factors; D014888:Wechsler Scales