Scaling of visuospatial attention undergoes differential longitudinal change as a function of APOE genotype prior to old age: results from the NIMH BIOCARD study.

The effect of apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype on longitudinal cognitive decline in midlife was investigated with attentional scaling. Healthy individuals (mean age 59.6 years) genotyped for APOE were tested at 3 12-month intervals on a cued visual search task. A random effects model revealed significant interaction in effect of precue size on search speed between APOE-epsilon4 gene dose and assessment, with longitudinal increases in noncarriers and heterozygotes but longitudinal decreases in homozygotes. Association of APOE-epsilon4 with cognitive decline in midlife is consistent with an Alzheimer's disease (AD) prodrome, albeit a decade or more before average age of AD diagnosis. However, cognitive decline in midlife associated with a gene modulating neuronal response to insult argues that the concept of an AD prodrome includes factors that allow as well as cause AD.