On 11 September, an international team of researchers from the European Prevention of Alzheimer's Dementia (EPAD) project published an article in the journal of Alzheimer’s disease entitled “Cognitive Dispersion is not Associated with Cerebrospinal Fluid Biomarkers of Alzheimer’s Disease: Results from the European Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia (EPAD) v500.0 Cohort”. The main aim of this study was to examine whether higher cognitive dispersion was associated with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels of amyloid-β, total tau, phosphorylated tau and amyloid positivity in a cohort of older adults at various severities of Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
A secondary aim was to explore which AD risk factors were associated with cognitive dispersion scores. Findings showed that dispersion was not associated with AD pathology, but was associated with age and years of education, highlighting individual differences in cognitive aging. The EPAD project has received support from the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking under grant agreement n° 115736, resources of which are composed of financial contribution from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) and EFPIA companies’ in kind contribution.