Deary Ian J, Whiteman Martha C, Pattie Alison, Starr John M, Hayward Caroline, Wright Alan F, Carothers Andrew, Whalley Lawrence J
Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, UK.
Nature. 2002 Aug 29;418(6901):932. doi: 10.1038/418932a.
There is a marked variation in whether people retain sufficient cognitive function to maintain their quality of life and independence in old age, even among those without dementia, so it would be valuable to identify the determinants of normal age-related cognitive change. We have retested non-demented 80-year-olds who were participants in the Scottish Mental Survey of 1932, and find that the variation in their non-pathological cognitive change from age 11 to 80 is related to their apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype. This effect of the APOE epsilon 4 allele on normal cognitive ageing may be mediated by a mechanism that is at least partly independent of its predisposing effect towards Alzheimer's disease.
即使在没有痴呆症的人群中，人们在老年时是否保留足够的认知功能以维持生活质量和独立性也存在显著差异，因此确定正常年龄相关认知变化的决定因素将很有价值。我们对参与1932年苏格兰精神调查的80岁非痴呆老人进行了重新测试，发现他们从11岁到80岁的非病理性认知变化差异与他们的载脂蛋白E（APOE）基因型有关。APOE ε4等位基因对正常认知衰老的这种影响可能由一种机制介导，该机制至少部分独立于其对阿尔茨海默病的易感性作用。
