3-YEAR CHANGES IN COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE AS A FUNCTION OF APOLIPOPROTEIN-E GENOTYPE - EVIDENCE FROM VERY OLD ADULTS WITHOUT DEMENTIA

This study examined whether baseline cognitive performance and 3-year longitudinal changes were influenced by apolipoprotein E epsilon 4 (AP OE-epsilon 4) allele. Participants consisted of 20 APOE-epsilon 4 (2 e psilon 2/epsilon 4; 17 epsilon 3/epsilon 4; 1 epsilon 4/epsilon 4) and 54 non-epsilon 4 (12 epsilon 2/epsilon 3; 42 epsilon 3/epsilon 3) ver y old adults without dementia (M = 81.82 +/- 5.06 years) participating in a population-based longitudinal study. Cognitive performance was i ndexed by the Mini-Mental State Examination and multiple indexes of me mory, visuospatial, and verbal performance. The results indicated no s ignificant baseline differences between the 2 APOE groups in any cogni tive performance measure. However, analyses revealed that the APOE-eps ilon 4 group experienced greater negative change in recognition memory for faces and words. Changes in tasks assessing other abilities did n ot vary as a function of APOE status. The authors concluded that APOE- epsilon 4 status may not influence cognitive performance in adults wit hout dementia and speculated that when such effects do occur (e.g., de cline in recognition memory), these may be related to impending dement ia, rather than to the influence of the specific genotype on cognition in normal aging.