Lifetime Intellectual enrichment has been found to delay the symptoms of dementia but the impact on brain changes due to Alzheimer’s disease has been poorly understood. In this study we studied the impact of lifetime intellectual enrichment (education, occupation, and midlife cognitive activities) on the brain changes related to Alzheimer’s disease. We obtained serial imaging on 393 individuals from a population based sample. We found that in majority of the individuals, there were minimal effects of intellectual enrichment on brain changes due to Alzheimer’s disease. However in those with higher genetic risk of Alzheimer’s, lifetime intellectual enrichment had a protective effect on the brain.
Though intellectual enrichment may not be able to slow down the brain changes due to Alzheimer’s disease, it has a significant impact in delaying the onset of dementia.
Keeping mentally active is important to delay symptoms of dementia. Also education level of the cohort had a significant impact on brain changes.
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