Abstract
Education in people’s early lives are positively related to their cognitive function, but its modulating effects on detailed cognition domains, its interaction with leisure activities and the associated brain changes have yet to be investigated. This report used data from 659 cognitively normal community dwelling elderly who completed neuropsychological tests, leisure activities measurement, and 78 of them underwent structural and diffusion MRI scans. We found that: (i) the highly educated elderly had a better cognitive functioning in multi-domains, higher frequencies of participation in knowledge-related leisure activities, and slower age-related reductions of executive function; (ii) the intellectual and social types of leisure activities mediated the association between education and multiple cognitive domains, including memory, language, attention and executive function; (iii) there was a significant age by education interaction on the gray matter volume of the anterior brain regions and white matter integrity; and (iv) the interaction between age and education affected cognition indirectly through white matter integrity analyzed using structural equation model. Overall, our results revealed that high education in early life served as a protective factor in aging that may help to postpone cognitive and brain reserve decline in cognitively normal aging.
Highlights
As we age, the brain and cognitive functions inevitably decline
The current study aims to examine the following hypotheses: 1) highly educated individuals exhibit more engagement in leisure activity and have less age-related cognitive declines compared to those with lower education; 2) the age effects on brain gray matter (GM)/white matter (WM) changes are mitigated in individuals with higher education levels; and 3) education acts as a moderator between brain structural changes and cognitive function
The main findings include: (1) cognitively normal elderly with high educational attainment have a high level of wide cognitive functioning and a significantly decreased age-related reduction in executive function; (2) the intellectual and social types of leisure activities mediate the association between education and multiple cognitive domains, including memory, language, attention and executive function; (3) there are differences in age-related GM atrophy between the high and the low education groups in the anterior regions (ORBsupmed.L and ACG.L) and age-related WM damage in the forceps major and SLF.temporal regions; and (4) the regional WM integrity mediates the interaction effects of education and age on cognition
Summary
The brain and cognitive functions inevitably decline. Various intrinsic and extrinsic factors contribute to the delay or acceleration of this process [1]. People with more mental stimulating experience are able to maintain better cognitive function when brain pathology is taking place. Roe and his colleague found that a group of high-educational older adults with neuropathological AD showed no dementia in their lives, in contrast to the low-educational group [8]. These findings have brought a new perspective for understanding the pathogenesis of cognitive aging and dementia, providing a non-medical means on prevention [9]
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