Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on October 31, 2006
Cerebral Cortex 2007 17(8):1934-1947; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhl103
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Better Memory and Neural Efficiency in Young Apolipoprotein E
4 Carriers
1 Division of Psychiatry Research, University of Zurich, 8032 Zurich, Switzerland, 2 Institute for Biomedical Engineering, University and ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland, 3 Institute of Psychology, University of Bern, 3000 Bern 9, Switzerland
Address correspondence to Katharina Henke, Institute of Psychology, University of Bern, Muesmattstrasse 9, 3000 Bern 9, Switzerland. Email: henke{at}psy.unibe.ch.
The apolipoprotein E (APOE)
4 allele is the major genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, but an APOE effect on memory performance and memory-related neurophysiology in young, healthy subjects is unknown. We found an association of APOE
4 with better episodic memory compared with APOE
2 and
3 in 340 young, healthy persons. Neuroimaging was performed in a subset of 34 memory-matched individuals to study genetic effects on memory-related brain activity independently of differential performance. E4 carriers decreased brain activity over 3 learning runs, whereas
2 and
3 carriers increased activity. This smaller neural investment of
4 carriers into learning reappeared during retrieval:
4 carriers exhibited reduced retrieval-related activity with equal retrieval performance. APOE isoforms had no differential effects on cognitive measures other than memory, brain volumes, and brain activity related to working memory. We suggest that APOE
4 is associated with good episodic memory and an economic use of memory-related neural resources in young, healthy humans.
Key Words: Alzheimer's disease APOE gene functional magnetic resonance imaging hippocampus learning neuroimaging
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