Anxiety Affects Cognition Differently in Healthy Apolipoprotein E 4 Homozygotes and Non-Carriers

Abstract

The authors investigated the effect of carrying the apolipoprotein epsilon4 allele on performance of cognitive tasks of executive functioning when anxiety was present. They studied 185 cognitively normal individuals matched for age, gender, education, cognitive test scores, psychotropic medications, and state- or trait-anxiety; some were homozygote carriers, some heterozygote, and some, non-carriers. A higher anxiety level was associated with poorer performance on the Trails B test in the e4 homozygote participants, which may be indicative of greater risk for subsequent cognitive decline.