Abstract Details

Title Education, Early Life Socioeconomic Status, and Later Life Alzheimer’s Disease-Related Neuropathological Lesions

Topic Aging and Dementia

Presentation(s) S20 - Aging and Dementia 2 (2:24 PM-2:36 PM)

Poster/Presentation
Number 008

Background Brain development is accelerated in early life. While higher educational attainment and early life socioeconomic status (SES) are associated with lower AD risk, relationships with AD-related neuropathological lesions are unclear. We hypothesize that higher educational attainment will be associated with lower frequency of AD-related neuropathological lesions, and that advantaged early life SES will partially confound this relationship.

Objective To investigate the relationship between education and Alzheimer's Disease (AD) related neuropathological lesions.

Design/Methods The Memory and Aging Project is a cohort of 2025 people age ≥ 58 years from Northeastern Illinois recruited in 1997 – 2018; 972 participants had autopsy. Respondents reported early life SES (composite of parental education and inverse of number of siblings) and years of education. Outcomes were square-root transformation of amyloid, neurofibrillary tangles, and global AD burden (combination of amyloid and neurofibrillary tangles) and presence versus absence of hippocampal sclerosis, Lewy bodies, gross infarcts, microvascular infarcts, and cerebral vascular disease pathology (atherosclerosis, amyloid angiopathy, and arteriolosclerosis). Models adjusted for age at death, sex, presence of APOE-?4 alleles, and in sensitivity analyses, baseline vascular risk factors.

Results Of 737 participants with relevant data (70% women, mean age at death 90+6 years), a total of 32% attended/completed college, and 31% attended/completed graduate school. Adjusting for sex, age at death and APOE-?4 alleles, attending/completing college was associated with lower presence of amyloid (coefficient = -0.28, 95%CI -0.46, -0.10), neurofibrillary tangles (coefficient = -0.08, 95%CI -0.14, -0.01), and global AD burden (coefficient = -0.11, 95%CI -0.17, -0.05), with similar associations for attending/completing graduate school. Results were similar when adjusting for early life SES and baseline vascular risk factors. Education was not related to other neuropathological lesions.

Conclusions Completion of higher education was related to lower burden of AD pathology, independent of early life SES. The changing educational profile of older adults may benefit AD pathology.

Authors/Disclosures
Amol M. Mehta, MD (Columbia University Medical Center) PRESENTER	Dr. Mehta has nothing to disclose.
	No disclosure on file
	No disclosure on file
David A. Bennett, MD (Rush University Medical Center)	Dr. Bennett has received personal compensation in the range of $10,000-$49,999 for serving as a Consultant for Origent. Dr. Bennett has received personal compensation in the range of $10,000-$49,999 for serving on a Scientific Advisory or Data Safety Monitoring board for AbbVie. Dr. Bennett has received personal compensation in the range of $5,000-$9,999 for serving as a Study section, DMC, NACA Council with NIH. Dr. Bennett has received personal compensation in the range of $10,000-$49,999 for serving as a invited lectures with AMCs. Dr. Bennett has received personal compensation in the range of $5,000-$9,999 for serving as a invited paper with National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Bennett has received personal compensation in the range of $5,000-$9,999 for serving as a lecture with National Academy of Neuropsychology.
	No disclosure on file
Philip De Jager, MD, PhD (Columbia University Irving Medical Center)	Dr. De Jager has received personal compensation in the range of $5,000-$9,999 for serving as a Consultant for Biogen. Dr. De Jager has received personal compensation in the range of $500-$4,999 for serving as a Consultant for Puretech. Dr. De Jager has received personal compensation in the range of $5,000-$9,999 for serving on a Scientific Advisory or Data Safety Monitoring board for roche. Dr. De Jager has received personal compensation in the range of $5,000-$9,999 for serving on a Scientific Advisory or Data Safety Monitoring board for biogen. The institution of Dr. De Jager has received research support from roche. The institution of Dr. De Jager has received research support from Biogen. The institution of Dr. De Jager has received research support from puretech.
Julie A. Schneider, MD, MS (Rush Alzheimer'S Disease Center)	Dr. Schneider has received personal compensation in the range of $500-$4,999 for serving as a Consultant for Eli Lilly. Dr. Schneider has received personal compensation in the range of $5,000-$9,999 for serving on a Scientific Advisory or Data Safety Monitoring board for alnylam. Dr. Schneider has received personal compensation in the range of $500-$4,999 for serving on a Scientific Advisory or Data Safety Monitoring board for apellis. Dr. Schneider has received personal compensation in the range of $5,000-$9,999 for serving as an Expert Witness for National Hockey League. The institution of Dr. Schneider has received research support from NIH. Dr. Schneider has received personal compensation in the range of $500-$4,999 for serving as a scientific advisor with Fondation Alzheimer, France.