This study seeks to better understand the relationship of brain pathology to cognitive function in aging and dementia. There is striking variability in how individuals'mental abilities change with age;some people change little, if any, others have major, debilitating drops. Why, is unknown. One explanation is brain pathologies such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and infarcts (strokes). AD, which is the predominant cause of dementia, develops slowly and may actually begin to appear in brain decades before overt symptoms are appear. Some degree of AD changes and vascular disease is present in most very old people. However, studies that relate pathology to cognitive function generally fail to explain most of the variance. One potential reason may be that the pathology has been inadequately measured. Alternatively, it may be that brain pathology, no matter how exquisitely measured, will never explain cognitive losses adequately because of factors that moderate the impact of pathology. This explanation has been developed in the concept of """"""""reserve"""""""", the idea that some set of innate and acquired characteristics form a buffer that provides a degree of protection against the impact of brain pathology. It is a concept that holds enormous potential importance for public health because it suggests that, to the degree these factors are modifiable, people can take steps to substantially protect themselves against a broad array of common and debilitating brain conditions. We propose to measure cerebral pathology better than has been done previously, to model the effects of pathology on cognitive function, and then to use these improved models to better understand the role of reserve as a moderator of the impact of brain pathology. A major barrier to previous investigation has been the inability to measure the presence of Alzheimer's disease during life. The recent development of tracers for beta amyloid (an abnormal protein fragment critical in AD) changes this. We will use PET with the tracer Pittsburgh B (PIB) to quantify the extent of cerebral amyloid, and will obtain MRI measures of structural brain pathology (atrophy, infarcts and white matter lesions) and thus model the joint effects of the two major age- associated pathologies on cognitive function. We will then use the results of that effort to study reserve. We will do so in an ethnically diverse sample that has a wide range of education, which is generally thought to be a marker for reserve, and will use neuropsychological tests with superior measurement properties. Thus we will be able to characterize brain pathology levels during life better than has ever been done before and relate those findings to cognitive function that is measured especially well across a broad spectrum of putative reserve.

Public Health Relevance

This project focuses on how pathology affects mental function and on the notion that """"""""reserve"""""""" may buffer these effects. Reserve is a concept that holds enormous potential importance for public health because, to the extent reserve is based in lifetime experiences-cognitively stimulating activities, for example-- it suggests that people can take steps to protect themselves against a broad array of common and debilitating brain disorders.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
3R01AG031563-02S1
Application #
8053976
Study Section
Adult Psychopathology and Disorders of Aging Study Section (APDA)
Program Officer
Wagster, Molly V
Project Start
2009-03-01
Project End
2014-02-28
Budget Start
2010-07-15
Budget End
2011-02-28
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2010
Total Cost
$45,927
Indirect Cost
Name
University of California Davis
Department
Neurology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
047120084
City
Davis
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
95618
Gavett, Brandon E; Fletcher, Evan; Harvey, Danielle et al. (2018) Ethnoracial differences in brain structure change and cognitive change. Neuropsychology 32:529-540
Mungas, Dan; Gavett, Brandon; Fletcher, Evan et al. (2018) Education amplifies brain atrophy effect on cognitive decline: implications for cognitive reserve. Neurobiol Aging 68:142-150
La Joie, Renaud; Ayakta, Nagehan; Seeley, William W et al. (2018) Multisite study of the relationships between antemortem [11C]PIB-PET Centiloid values and postmortem measures of Alzheimer's disease neuropathology. Alzheimers Dement :
Hohman, Timothy J; Tommet, Doug; Marks, Shawn et al. (2017) Evaluating Alzheimer's disease biomarkers as mediators of age-related cognitive decline. Neurobiol Aging 58:120-128
Seo, Sang Won; Ayakta, Nagehan; Grinberg, Lea T et al. (2017) Regional correlations between [11C]PIB PET and post-mortem burden of amyloid-beta pathology in a diverse neuropathological cohort. Neuroimage Clin 13:130-137
Risacher, Shannon L; McDonald, Brenna C; Tallman, Eileen F et al. (2016) Association Between Anticholinergic Medication Use and Cognition, Brain Metabolism, and Brain Atrophy in Cognitively Normal Older Adults. JAMA Neurol 73:721-32
Villeneuve, Sylvia; Rabinovici, Gil D; Cohn-Sheehy, Brendan I et al. (2015) Existing Pittsburgh Compound-B positron emission tomography thresholds are too high: statistical and pathological evaluation. Brain 138:2020-33
Maillard, Pauline; Carmichael, Owen T; Reed, Bruce et al. (2015) Cooccurrence of vascular risk factors and late-life white-matter integrity changes. Neurobiol Aging 36:1670-1677
Melrose, Rebecca J; Brewster, Paul; Marquine, MarĂ­a J et al. (2015) Early life development in a multiethnic sample and the relation to late life cognition. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 70:519-31
Lau, Karen M; Parikh, Mili; Harvey, Danielle J et al. (2015) Early Cognitively Based Functional Limitations Predict Loss of Independence in Instrumental Activities of Daily Living in Older Adults. J Int Neuropsychol Soc 21:688-98

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