title: Hippocampal volume differences between healthy young apolipoprotein E ε2 and ε4 carriers.
abstract: The apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele is the major genetic risk factor for the development of late-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD), whereas the presence of the APOE ε2 allele seems to confer protection. Here, we report that healthy young APOE ε4 carriers have statistically significantly smaller hippocampal volumes than APOE ε2 carriers, while no differences were detected between the two groups in memory performance. The difference in hippocampal morphology is cognitively/clinically silent in young adulthood, but could render APOE ε4 carriers more prone to the later development of AD possibly due to lower reserve cognitive capacity.
authors: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Klinikum der Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany. panos.alexopoulos@lrz.tu-muenchen.de
authors: Panagiotis
authors: P
authors: Alexopoulos
authors: Tanja
authors: T
authors: Richter-Schmidinger
authors: Marco
authors: M
authors: Horn
authors: Sebastian
authors: S
authors: Maus
authors: Martin
authors: M
authors: Reichel
authors: Christos
authors: C
authors: Sidiropoulos
authors: Cosima
authors: C
authors: Rhein
authors: Piotr
authors: P
authors: Lewczuk
authors: Arnd
authors: A
authors: Doerfler
authors: Johannes
authors: J
authors: Kornhuber