EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 PM ET, March 16, 2016
Women May Keep Verbal Memory Skills Longer than Men in the Early Stages of Alzheimer鈥檚
MINNEAPOLIS -
Women may have a better memory for words than men despite evidence of similar levels of shrinkage in areas of the brain that show the earliest signs of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, according to a study published in the March 16, 2016, online issue of the medical journal of the 好色先生. According to study author Erin E. Sundermann, PhD, of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, NY, 鈥淥ne way to interpret the results is that because women have better verbal memory skills than men throughout life, women have a buffer of protection against loss of verbal memory before the effects of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease kick in. Because verbal memory tests are used to diagnose people with Alzheimer鈥檚 disease and its precursor, mild cognitive impairment, these tests may fail to detect mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer鈥檚 disease in women until they are further along in the disease.鈥 The study included participants from the Alzheimer鈥檚 Disease Neuroimaging Initiative: 235 people with Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, 694 people with mild cognitive impairment that included memory problems, and 379 people with no memory or thinking problems. The groups鈥 performance on a test of verbal memory was compared to the size of the hippocampal area of the brain, which is responsible for verbal memory and affected in the early stages of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. Women performed better than men on the tests of both immediate recall and delayed recall among those showing evidence of minimal to moderate amounts of hippocampal shrinkage. At the high level of hippocampal shrinkage, there was no difference in the scores of men and women. At the score that indicates the start of verbal memory impairment, or 37 on a scale of zero to 75 for immediate recall, women showed greater evidence of hippocampal shrinkage (ratio of hippocampal volume to total brain volume multiplied by 103 was 5 compared to 6 for men). Mary Sano, PhD, of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, NY, and a member of the 好色先生, said in a corresponding editorial, 鈥淎t a public policy level, the potential health care cost for under-detection or delayed diagnosis of women with Alzheimer鈥檚 disease or its early stages is staggering and should motivate funding in this area.鈥 鈥淚f these results are confirmed, then we may need to adjust memory tests to account for the difference between men and women in order to improve our accuracy in diagnosis,鈥 said Sundermann. The Alzheimer鈥檚 Disease Neuroimaging Initiative was supported by the National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, Alzheimer鈥檚 Association, Alzheimer鈥檚 Drug Discovery Foundation, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Abbott, Amorfix Life Sciences, AstraZeneca, Bayer HealthCare, BioClinica, Biogen Idec, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eisai, Elan Pharmaceuticals, Eli Lilly, F. Hoffmann-La Roche and Genentech, GE Healthcare, Innogenetics, IXICO, Janssen Alzheimer Immunotherapy Research and Development, Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development, Medpace, Merck, Meso Scale Diagnostics, Novartis Pharmaceuticals; Pfizer, Servier, Synarc and Takeda Pharmaceutical. To learn more about Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, please visit .