title: Education is associated with sub-regions of the hippocampus and the amygdala vulnerable to neuropathologies of Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: We evaluated the correlation of educational attainment with structural volume and shape morphometry of the bilateral hippocampi and amygdalae in a sample of 110 non-demented, older adults at elevated sociodemographic risk for cognitive and functional declines. In both men and women, no significant education-volume correlation was detected for either structure. However, when performing shape analysis, we observed regionally specific associations with education after adjusting for age, intracranial volume, and race. By sub-dividing the hippocampus and the amygdala into compatible subregions, we found that education was positively associated with size variations in the CA1 and subiculum subregions of the hippocampus and the basolateral subregion of the amygdala (p < 0.05). In addition, we detected a greater left versus right asymmetric pattern in the shape-education correlation for the hippocampus but not the amygdala. This asymmetric association was largely observed in men versus women. These findings suggest that education in youth may exert direct and indirect influences on brain reserve in regions that are most vulnerable to the neuropathologies of aging, dementia, and specifically, Alzheimer disease.
authors.affiliation: Sun Yat-sen University-Carnegie Mellon University (SYSU-CMU) Joint Institute of Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. tangxiaoy@mail.sysu.edu.cn.|Sun Yat-sen University-Carnegie Mellon University (SYSU-CMU) Shunde International Joint Research Institute, Shunde, Guangdong, China. tangxiaoy@mail.sysu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Xiaoying
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.|Center on Aging and Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Vijay R
authors.initials: VR
authors.lastname: Varma
authors.affiliation: Center for Imaging Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.|Institute for Computational Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.|Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Michael I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.affiliation: Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA. mcarlso2@jhu.edu.|Center on Aging and Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA. mcarlso2@jhu.edu.
authors.forename: Michelle C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Carlson
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000473:pathology*; D000679:Amygdala / Q000473:pathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012737:Sex Factors
keywords: Amygdala; Brain reserve; Cognitive reserve; Education; Hippocampus; Shape