Larger Head Size May Protect Against Alzheimer's Symptoms
A new study co-authored by Boston University School of Public Health researchers shows that people with Alzheimer’s disease who have large heads have better memory and thinking skills than those with the disease who have smaller heads, even when they have the same amount of brain cell death due to the disease.
Professors of Biostatistics Adrienne Cuppels, PhD, MA, and Kathryn Lunetta, PhD, MS, co-authored the paper, which is published in the July 13, 2010, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Head size is one way to measure brain reserve and brain growth. Lead author Robert Perneczky, MD, of the Technical University of Munich in Germany Perneczky said that while brain growth is determined in part by genetics, it is also influenced by nutrition, infections and inflammations of the central nervous system, and brain injuries.
For the study, 270 people with Alzheimer’s disease took tests of their memory and cognitive skills and had MRI scans of their brains to measure the amount of brain cell death. Head size was determined by the circumference measurement.
The study showed that larger head size was associated with a greater performance on memory and thinking tests, even when there was an equivalent degree of brain cell death. Specifically, for every one percent of brain cell death, an additional centimeter of head size was associated with a six percent greater performance on the memory tests.
The study was supported by the National Institute on Aging.
Submitted by Elana Zak