Background: Cognitive reserve (CR) is hypothesized to partially explain the discrepancy between Alzheimer's disease related brain pathology and cognitive performance. Educational attainment is often used as a proxy for CR.
Objective: To examine the association of years of education and the relationship between atrophy in the medial temporal lobe and episodic memory, in a cross-sectional ecological multi-center memory clinic cohort.
Methods: Included patients (n = 702) had undergone memory clinic examination and were diagnosed with subjective cognitive impairment (n = 99), mild cognitive impairment (n = 471), or dementia (n = 132). Total years of education were used as a moderating variable and neuropathology was operationalized as visual ratings of medial temporal lobe atrophy (MTA) on magnetic resonance imaging and computer tomography images. Weighted least squares regression and multiple regression were used to analyze moderation and the effect of education separately by diagnostic group. A composite score of two episodic memory tests constituted the dependent variable.
Results: After controlling for age and gender the interaction term between MTA and years of education was significant indicating moderation. In particular, the regression model showed that at low levels of MTA, high education individuals had better episodic memory performance. However, at higher MTA levels, high education individuals had the lowest episodic memory performance. Education had a significant positive effect on episodic memory in SCI and MCI, but not dementia.
Conclusion: These results extend the findings of education moderating the effect of MTA on cognition to a naturalistic memory clinic setting. Implications of the findings for theories on CR are discussed.
Keywords: Cognitive aging; cognitive impairments; cognitive neuroscience; cognitive reserve; magnetic resonance imaging; neuropsychology.