Abstract

Introduction

High levels of amyloid β (Aβ) are associated with cognitive decline in cognitively normal (CN) older adults. This study investigated the nature of cognitive decline in healthy individuals who did not progress to mild cognitive impairment or dementia.

Method

Cognition was measured over 72 months and compared between low (Aβ−) and high (Aβ+) CN older adults (n = 335) who did not progress to mild cognitive impairment or dementia and who remained free of severe or uncontrolled systemic illness.

Results

Compared to the Aβ− group, the Aβ+ group showed no cognitive impairment at baseline but showed substantial decline in verbal learning, episodic memory, and attention over 72 months.

Discussion

Moderate cognitive decline, particularly for learning and memory, was associated with Aβ+ in CN older adults in the absence of clinical disease progression and uncontrolled or serious comorbid illness.

RAS ID

25387

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

2017

Funding Information

Alzheimer's Association

Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation

Science and Industry Endowment Fund

Dementia Collaborative Research Centres

McCusker Alzheimer's Research Foundation

National Health and Medical Research Council

Yulgilbar Foundation

Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Mental Health

Yulgilbar Alzheimer's Research Program

CRC for Mental Health

School

School of Medical and Health Sciences

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Publisher

Elsevier Inc

Comments

Harrington K.D., Lim Y.Y., Ames D., Hassenstab J., Laws S.M., Martins R.N., Rainey-Smith S., Robertson J., Rowe C.C., Salvado O., Doré V., Villemagne V.L., Snyder P.J., Masters C.L., Maruff P. (2017). Amyloid-β–associated cognitive decline in the absence of clinical disease progression and systemic illness. Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, 8(1), 156-164.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dadm.2017.05.006

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.1016/j.dadm.2017.05.006