{"id":137707,"date":"2025-09-02T16:35:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T20:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/?post_type=bu-article&p=137707"},"modified":"2025-09-11T13:18:45","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T17:18:45","slug":"higher-education-provides-limited-protection-from-alzheimers-disease","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/news-events\/articles\/2025\/higher-education-provides-limited-protection-from-alzheimers-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Higher Education Provides Limited Protection from Alzheimer\u2019s Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHigher Education Provides Limited Protection from Alzheimer\u2019s Disease<\/strong>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

New study highlights the need for better screening tools that can detect early signs of cognitive decline even in individuals who appear to function well due to high education levels<\/em><\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n
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September 2, 2025<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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Cognitive reserve (CR) is the brain’s ability to maintain cognitive function despite age-related brain changes, damage or disease. It reflects an individual’s capacity to cope with these changes by utilizing pre-existing cognitive strategies or developing compensatory mechanisms. The CR hypothesis presumes higher tolerance of Alzheimer\u2019s disease (AD)-related pathology without functional decline for those with high education yet more rapid decline after AD onset. However, evidence supporting the second part of the hypothesis has been largely confined to U.S.-based studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new study<\/a> by researchers from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine has found that people with more years of education lost their memory and thinking abilities faster after being diagnosed with AD, compared to those with less education. These findings now provide evidence for the CR theory using real-life data from older adults from England, Germany and France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jinying Chen, PhD<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur study suggests that people with more education might be diagnosed with Alzheimer\u2019s later\u2014possibly because their brains hide the symptoms for longer\u2014but then decline more quickly afterward. This means doctors and families need to be extra alert to early, subtle changes in memory, speech, thinking, judgement and mood in well-educated adults, so that treatment and support can start as early as possible,\u201d explains corresponding author Jinying Chen<\/a>, PhD, assistant professor of medicine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers analyzed data from more than 1,300 older adults diagnosed with AD in memory clinics across England, Germany and France, (as part of the GERAS European study). Participants were followed for 18 months to three years, having their cognitive performance  measured using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE)\u2014a brief test commonly used to screen for cognitive impairment and track decline over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They then used a statistical method to see how quickly people\u2019s MMSE scores went down after being diagnosed with AD, comparing those with more education (12 years or more) to those with less. They also took into account other things that could affect cognitive decline, such as age, sex, other health conditions, treatments for AD, the country they lived in and how long it had been since they were diagnosed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their findings suggest that common cognitive tests like the MMSE may miss early signs of Alzheimer\u2019s in highly educated individuals. While more detailed neuropsychological tests are more sensitive, they can take hours to complete, are expensive, and require trained professionals to administer and interpret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers believe that in the future, self-administered digital tests\u2014especially those using mobile devices or wearables with automated scoring\u2014could offer a faster, more affordable, and scalable way to detect early changes in thinking and memory. \u201cWe hope our findings will lead to better ways of detecting Alzheimer\u2019s disease early\u2014especially in people who may not show obvious symptoms at first. Earlier detection means families can plan sooner, and doctors can start treatments that may help slow the disease.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These findings appear online<\/a> in the Journal of Alzheimer\u2019s Disease.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cognitive reserve (CR) is the brain’s ability to maintain cognitive function despite age-related brain changes, damage or disease. It reflects an individual’s capacity to cope with these changes by utilizing pre-existing cognitive strategies or developing compensatory mechanisms. The CR hypothesis presumes higher tolerance of Alzheimer\u2019s disease (AD)-related pathology without functional decline for those with high […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":903,"featured_media":39501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":"Research"},"tags":[105],"bu-publication":[367],"medicine-article-category":[],"medicine-topic":[],"news-article-category":[385],"news-topic":[],"bu_edition":[390],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/137707"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137707"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/137707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138018,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/137707\/revisions\/138018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137707"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=137707"},{"taxonomy":"medicine-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/medicine-article-category?post=137707"},{"taxonomy":"medicine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/medicine-topic?post=137707"},{"taxonomy":"news-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-article-category?post=137707"},{"taxonomy":"news-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-topic?post=137707"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=137707"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=137707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}