Cognitive reserve, cortical plasticity and resistance to Alzheimer's disease.

ABSTRACT: There are aspects of the ageing brain and cognition that remain poorly understood despite intensive efforts to understand how they are related. Cognitive reserve is the concept that has been developed to explain how it is that some elderly people with extensive neuropathology associated with dementia show little in the way of cognitive decline. Cognitive reserve is intimately related to cortical plasticity but this also, as it relates to ageing, remains poorly understood at the present time. Despite the shortcomings in understanding, we do have some knowledge on which to base efforts to minimise the likelihood of an elderly person developing dementia. For some risks the evidence is far from secure, but resistance to Alzheimer's disease (AD) appears from epidemiological studies to be contri

SUBMITTER: Esiri MM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3334540 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature