Gender and education impact on brain aging: a general cognitive factor approach.
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.
Proust-Lima
Cécile
C
Biostatistics Department, INSERM U897.
Amieva
Hélène
H
Universite Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2.
Letenneur
Luc
L
0000-0002-3274-937X
Universite Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2.
Orgogozo
Jean-Marc
JM
Universite Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2.
Jacqmin-Gadda
Hélène
H
Biostatistics Department, INSERM U897.
Dartigues
Jean-François
JF
Universite Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2.
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