This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Alzheimer Disease  • Dementias  • Neurogenetics  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Variation of Education Effect With Carbon 11–Labeled Pittsburgh Compound B Uptake

Catherine M. Roe, PhD; Mark A. Mintun, MD; Gina D’Angelo, PhD; Chengjie Xiong, PhD; Elizabeth A. Grant, PhD; John C. Morris, MD

Arch Neurol. 2008;65(11):1467-1471.

Objective  To evaluate the cognitive reserve hypothesis by examining whether individuals of greater educational attainment have better cognitive function than individuals with less education in the presence of elevated fibrillar brain amyloid levels.

Design, Setting, and Participants  Uptake of carbon 11–labeled Pittsburgh Compound B ([¹¹C]PiB) was measured for participants assessed between August 15, 2003, and January 8, 2008, at the Washington University Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and diagnosed either as nondemented (n = 161) or with dementia of the Alzheimer type (n = 37). Multiple regression was used to determine whether [¹¹C]PiB uptake interacted with level of educational attainment to predict cognitive function.

Main Outcome Measures  Scores on the Clinical Dementia Rating sum of boxes, Mini-Mental State Examination, and Short Blessed Test and individual measures from a psychometric battery.

Results  Uptake of [¹¹C]PiB interacted with years of education in predicting scores on the Clinical Dementia Rating sum of boxes (P = .003), the Mini-Mental State Examination (P < .001), the Short Blessed Test (P = .03), and a measure of verbal abstract reasoning and conceptualization (P = .02) such that performance on these measures increased with increasing education for participants with elevated PiB uptake. Education was unrelated to global cognitive functioning scores among those with lower PiB uptake.

Conclusion  The results support the hypothesis that cognitive reserve influences the association between Alzheimer disease pathological burden and cognition.

Author Affiliations: Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (Drs Roe, Mintun, D’Angelo, Xiong, Grant, and Morris), Departments of Neurology (Drs Roe and Morris), Radiology (Dr Mintun), and Pathology and Immunology (Dr Morris), Division of Biostatistics (Drs D’Angelo, Xiong, and Grant), and Program in Physical Therapy (Dr Morris), Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, Missouri.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLE

This Month in Archives of Neurology
Arch Neurol. 2008;65(11):1415-1416.
FULL TEXT  

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Comparison of 18F-FDG and PiB PET in Cognitive Impairment
Lowe et al.
JNM 2009;50:878-886.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT