Education modulates brain maintenance in presymptomatic frontotemporal dementia
Publication: Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry
Stefano Gazzina, Mario Grassi, Enrico Premi, Maura Cosseddu, Antonella Alberici, Silvana Archetti, Roberto Gasparotti, John Van Swieten, Daniela Galimberti, Raquel Sanchez-Valle, Robert Jr Laforce, Fermin Moreno, Matthis Synofzik, Caroline Graff, Mario Masellis, Maria Carmela Tartaglia, James B Rowe, Rik Vandenberghe, Elizabeth Finger, Fabrizio Tagliavini, Alexandre de Mendonça, Isabel Santana, Christopher R Butler, Simon Ducharme, Alex Gerhard, Adrian Danek, Johannes Levin, Markus Otto, Giovanni Frisoni, Sandro Sorbi, Alessandro Padovani, Jonathan D Rohrer, Barbara Borroni
10 June 2019
Cognitively engaging lifestyles have been associated with reduced risk of conversion to dementia. Multiple mechanisms have been advocated, including increased brain volumes (ie, brain reserve) and reduced disease progression (ie, brain maintenance). In cross-sectional studies of presymptomatic frontotemporal dementia (FTD), higher education has been related to increased grey matter volume. Here, the researchers examined the effect of education on grey matter loss over time.
Highly educated at-risk subjects had better cognition and higher grey matter volume at baseline; moreover, higher educational attainment was associated with slower loss of grey matter over time in mutation carriers.
This longitudinal study demonstrates that even in presence of ongoing pathological processes, education may facilitate both brain reserve and brain maintenance in the presymptomatic phase of genetic FTD.