Researchers at the Department of Psychiatry, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, investigated the effects of formal education on the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. They were able to show that education diminishes the impact of Alzheimer's disease on cognition even if a manifest brain volume loss has already occurred.
The results are published in the current issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease ("Education attenuates the effect of medial temporal lobe atrophy on cognitive function in Alzheimer's disease: The MIRAGE Study," Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, August 2009).
Dr. Robert Perneczky, Department of Psychiatry at Klinikum rechts der Isar explains: "We know that there is not always a close association between brain damage due to Alzheimer's disease and the resulting symptoms of dementia. In fact, there are individuals with severe brain pathology with almost no signs of dementia, whereas others with only minor brain lesions exhibit a considerable degree of clinical symptoms." These phenomena are often ascribed to the theoretical concept of cognitive reserve. A high level of cognitive reserve results in a strong individual resilience against symptoms of brain damage; cognitive reserve can therefore be seen as protective against brain damage.
In support of this, previous studies demonstrated that duration of formal education is associated with cognitive reserve such that comparison of individuals with the same degree of brain damage shows that those with more years of formal education suffer from less severe symptoms of dementia.