No moderating influence of education on the association between changes in hippocampus volume and memory performance in aging
Martin Lövdén,
Amos Pagin,
David Bartrés-Faz,
Carl-Johan Boraxbekk,
Andreas M. Brandmaier,
Naiara Demnitz,
Christian A. Drevon,
Klaus P. Ebmeier,
Anders M. Fjell,
Paolo Ghisletta,
Tetiana Gorbach,
Ulman Lindenberger,
Anna Plachti,
Kristine B. Walhovd,
Lars Nyberg
Affiliations
Martin Lövdén
Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden; Corresponding author.
Amos Pagin
Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
David Bartrés-Faz
Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and Institute of Neurosciences, University of Barcelona, Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Barcelona, Spain
Carl-Johan Boraxbekk
Umeå Center for Functional Brain Imaging (UFBI), Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden; Department of Radiation Sciences, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden; Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance (DRCMR), Centre for Functional and Diagnostic Imaging and Research, Copenhagen University Hospital – Amager and Hvidovre, Copenhagen, Denmark; Institute for Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; Institute of Sports Medicine Copenhagen (ISMC) and Department of Neurology, Copenhagen University Hospital Bispebjerg, Copenhagen, Denmark
Andreas M. Brandmaier
Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany; Department of Psychology, MSB Medical School Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Naiara Demnitz
Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance (DRCMR), Centre for Functional and Diagnostic Imaging and Research, Copenhagen University Hospital – Amager and Hvidovre, Copenhagen, Denmark
Christian A. Drevon
Department of Nutrition, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo & Vitas AS, Oslo Science Park, Norway
Klaus P. Ebmeier
Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, University of Oxford, UK
Anders M. Fjell
Center for Lifespan Changes in Brain and Cognition, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, POB 1094, 0317 Oslo, Norway; ComputationalRadiology and Artificial Intelligence, Division of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet, Norway
Paolo Ghisletta
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland; Faculty of Psychology, UniDistance Suisse, Brig, Switzerland
Tetiana Gorbach
Department of Integrative Medical Biology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
Ulman Lindenberger
Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
Anna Plachti
Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance (DRCMR), Centre for Functional and Diagnostic Imaging and Research, Copenhagen University Hospital – Amager and Hvidovre, Copenhagen, Denmark
Kristine B. Walhovd
Center for Lifespan Changes in Brain and Cognition, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, POB 1094, 0317 Oslo, Norway; ComputationalRadiology and Artificial Intelligence, Division of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet, Norway
Lars Nyberg
Umeå Center for Functional Brain Imaging (UFBI), Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden; Department of Radiation Sciences, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden; Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland
Contemporary accounts of factors that may modify the risk for age-related neurocognitive disorders highlight education and its contribution to a cognitive reserve. By this view, individuals with higher educational attainment should show weaker associations between changes in brain and cognition than individuals with lower educational attainment. We tested this prediction in longitudinal data on hippocampus volume and episodic memory from 708 middle-aged and older individuals using local structural equation modeling. This technique does not require categorization of years of education and does not constrain the shape of relationships, thereby maximizing the chances of revealing an effect of education on the hippocampus-memory association. The results showed that the data were plausible under the assumption that there was no influence of education on the association between change in episodic memory and change in hippocampus volume. Restricting the sample to individuals with elevated genetic risk for dementia (APOE ε4 carriers) did not change these results. We conclude that the influence of education on changes in episodic memory and hippocampus volume is inconsistent with predictions by the cognitive reserve theory.
