Experiences at every stage of life contribute to cognitive abilities in old age

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Early life experiences, such as childhood socioeconomic status and literacy, may have greater influence on the risk of cognitive impairment late in life than such demographic characteristics as race and ethnicity, a large study by researchers with the UC Davis Alzheimer’s Disease Center and the University of Victoria, Canada, has found.”Declining cognitive function in older adults is a major personal and public health concern,” said Bruce Reed professor of neurology and associate director of the UC Davis Alzheimer’s Disease Center.”But not all people lose cognitive function, and understanding the remarkable variability in cognitive trajectories as people age is of critical importance for prevention, treatment and planning to promote successful cognitive aging and minimize problems associated with cognitive decline.”The study, “Life Experiences and Demographic Influences on Cognitive Function in Older Adults,” is published online in Neuropsychology, a journal of the American Psychological Association. It is one of the first comprehensive examinations of the multiple influences of varied demographic factors early in life and their relationship to cognitive aging.The research was conducted in a group of over 300 diverse men and women who spoke either English or Spanish. They were recruited from senior citizen social, recreational and residential centers, as well as churches and health-care settings. At the time of recruitment, all study participants were 60 or older, and had no major psychiatric illnesses or life threatening medical illnesses. Participants were Caucasian, African-American or Hispanic.The extensive testing included multidisciplinary diagnostic evaluations through the UC Davis Alzheimer’s Disease Center in either English or Spanish, which permitted comparisons across a diverse cohort of participants.Consistent with previous research, the study found that non-Latino Caucasians scored 20 to 25 percent higher on tests of semantic memory (general knowledge) and 13 to 15 percent higher on tests of executive functioning compared to the other ethnic groups. However, ethnic differences in executive functioning disappeared and differences in semantic memory were reduced by 20 to 30 percent when group differences in childhood socioeconomic status, adult literacy and extent of physical activity during adulthood were considered.”This study is unusual in that it examines how many different life experiences affect cognitive decline in late life,” said Dan Mungas, professor of neurology and associate director of the UC Davis Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.”It shows that variables like ethnicity and years of education that influence cognitive test scores in a single evaluation are not associated with rate of cognitive decline, but that specific life experiences like level of reading attainment and intellectually stimulating activities are predictive of the rate of late-life cognitive decline. This suggests that intellectual stimulation throughout the life span can reduce cognitive decline in old age.”Regardless of ethnicity, advanced age and apolipoprotein-E (APOE genotype) were associated with increased cognitive decline over an average of four years that participants were followed. APOE is the largest known genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s. Less decline was experienced by persons who reported more engagement in recreational activities in late life and who maintained their levels of activity engagement from middle age to old age. Single-word reading — the ability to decode a word on sight, which often is considered an indication of quality of educational experience — was also associated with less cognitive decline, a finding that was true for both English and Spanish readers, irrespective of their race or ethnicity. …


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Families Have Legal Rights (and Limitations)

Families Have Legal Rights (and Limitations)



Asbestos claims are not limited to people who have been exposed to asbestos. Loved ones of people who have died from asbestos-related illnesses may also have legal claims. In some cases, family members can step in as plaintiffs if their loved ones...

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Macro-portrait of future bird and wetland scenarios under climate change

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Using a mountain of satellite photographic data and decades of waterfowl counts, a Texas Tech University biologist said she and others have found a correlation with the amount of waterfowl and the amount of wetlands available across the plains from Canada to Texas.More wetlands meaning more waterfowl may sound like a no-brainer, but researchers were able to land at conclusion using macrosystems ecology said Nancy McIntyre, a professor of biological sciences and curator of birds at the Natural Science Research Laboratory.The research appeared in a special edition of the peer-reviewed journal, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, dedicated to macrosystems ecology.”The novelty of what we’re doing is in taking the weather data from the past to be able to say certain types of precipitation conditions led to X amount of available wetlands, which was associated with Y number of birds,” McIntyre said. “If future climate scenarios say we should get fewer but more extreme precipitation events, then we can estimate how many wetlands and birds will be around in the future, so long as no more wetlands are converted into farm use or turned into neighborhoods. That’s work in progress. It sounds straightforward, but it has never been done because of the complexity and the massive amount of data used here.”Macrosystems ecology is a new and emerging science using large amounts of information that are analyzed by faster and smarter computers to not only create greater understanding of how habitats interact, but also make better predictions about how these systems may react in the face of global climate change, she said.”A change in the number of wetlands available can cascade in to the variety and numbers of birds, as well as amphibians, dragonflies and a number of other animals,” McIntyre said. “In the United States, we’ve lost about 50 percent of the nation’s original wetlands in the past 200 years. The losses are particularly bad in the Great Plains, where about 98 percent of the wetlands have disappeared since 1986. With climate change on the horizon, we’re trying to understand how these wetlands and the animals that use them interact.”The research was part of a $1.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation. McIntyre and others looked at freshwater wetlands across the Great Plains from the prairie potholes carved by glacial activity in the north, through the Rainwater Basin of Nebraska down to the playa lakes of the South Plains.”They call it the duck factory of the world,” McIntyre said. “Most of the ducks breed up there and overwinter down here. But there are about 300 species of regularly occurring, breeding land birds in the Great Plains, many of which use these wetlands.”Researchers studied photos from satellites that passed over the same area of land every 16 days, she said. …


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Cancer Researchers Discover Pre-Leukemic Stem Cell at Root of AML, Relapse

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Cancer researchers led by stem cell scientist Dr. John Dick have discovered a pre-leukemic stem cell that may be the first step in initiating disease and also the culprit that evades therapy and triggers relapse in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML).The research, published online today in Nature is a significant leap in understanding the steps that a normal cell has to go through as it turns into AML, says Dr. Dick, and sets the stage to advance personalized cancer medicine by potentially identifying individuals who might benefit from targeting the pre-leukemic stem cell. AML is an aggressive blood cancer that the new research shows starts in stem cells in the bone marrow. Dr. Dick, a Senior Scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network (UHN), and Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, pioneered the cancer stem cell field by first identifying leukemia stem cells (1994) and colon cancer stem cells (2007).”Our discovery lays the groundwork to detect and target the pre-leukemic stem cell and thereby potentially stop the disease at a very early stage when it may be more amenable to treatment,” says Dr. Dick, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Stem Cell Biology and is also Director of the Cancer Stem Cell Program at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR).”Now we have a potential tool for earlier diagnosis that may allow early intervention before the development of full AML. We can also monitor remission and initiate therapy to target the pre-leukemic stem cell to prevent relapse,” he says.The findings show that in about 25% of AML patients, a mutation in the gene DNMT3a causes pre-leukemic stem cells to develop that function like normal blood stem cells but grow abnormally. These cells survive chemotherapy and can be found in the bone marrow at remission, forming a reservoir of cells that may eventually acquire additional mutations, leading to relapse.The discovery of pre-leukemic stem cells came out of a large Leukemia Disease Team that Dr. Dick assembled and included oncologists who collected samples for the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre Biobank and genome scientists at the OICR who developed sophisticated targeted sequencing methodology. …


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