Publications by authors named "Agustin Ibanez"

Optimal brain health is essential to smoothing major global skill-intensive economic transitions, such as the bioeconomy, green, care economy and digital transitions. Good brain health is vital to socio-economic sustainability, productivity and well-being. The care transition focuses on recognizing and investing in care services and care work as essential for economic growth and social well-being.

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Cross-sectional studies suggest a limited relationship between accelerated epigenetic aging derived from epigenetic clocks, and Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathophysiology or risk. However, most prior analyses have not utilized longitudinal analyses or whole-brain neuroimaging biomarkers of AD. Herein, we employed longitudinal modeling and structural neuroimaging analyses to test the hypothesis that accelerated epigenetic aging would predict AD progression.

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  • Latin America's genetic diversity offers a unique opportunity to study Alzheimer's disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), with a focus on identifying related genetic variations.
  • The study involved 2,162 participants from six countries who underwent extensive genomic sequencing and analysis to detect genetic factors linked to these dementias.
  • Results highlighted a mix of American, African, and European ancestries, discovered 17 pathogenic variants, and revealed specific genetic variations tied to AD and FTD inheritance patterns in affected families.
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Dementia prevention in Africa is critically underexplored, despite the continent's high prevalence of modifiable risk factors. With a predominantly young and middle-aged population, Africa presents a prime opportunity to implement evidence-based strategies that could significantly reduce future dementia cases and mitigate its economic impact. The multinational Africa-FINGERS program offers an innovative solution, pioneering culturally sensitive, multidomain interventions tailored to the unique challenges of the region.

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  • * Concerns are raised about purely biological definitions being used in clinical settings, especially since many biomarker-positive but cognitively normal individuals may never develop symptoms, complicating diagnosis and patient understanding.
  • * The authors advocate for a combined clinical-biological definition of AD that accommodates at-risk and presymptomatic stages, emphasizing the need for caution in diagnosing AD without fully understanding the implications for patients.
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  • - This study aimed to examine the relationship between the 'weekend warrior' physical activity pattern (exercising once or twice a week) and the risk of mild dementia among adults.
  • - Data from 10,033 participants in Mexico City were analyzed over a follow-up period of 16 years, revealing that 'weekend warriors' had a lower risk of mild dementia compared to those who did not exercise.
  • - The findings suggest that even minimal physical activity, like that of weekend warriors, may help reduce the risk of mild dementia, indicating potential benefits for mental health.
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  • Neurodegenerative diseases show overlapping deficits in interoception, emotions, and social cognition, linked to a common neurobiological network called the allostatic-interoceptive network (AIN), although this hasn't been fully explored previously.
  • A comprehensive meta-analysis found 170 relevant studies involving 7,032 participants, highlighting key brain areas (like the insula and amygdala) correlated with these deficits across several neurodegenerative conditions including bvFTD, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson’s disease.
  • Overall, neurodegeneration disrupts the AIN, with greater effects seen in bvFTD, suggesting a need for more integrated research approaches in understanding these cognitive impairments.
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  • Early detection of cognitive impairment, both subjective and objective, is crucial, as subjective complaints can appear before any measurable deficits.
  • A study involving 3,327 participants used a smartphone app to examine how 13 dementia risk factors relate to subjective memory and objective cognitive functions.
  • Results showed subjective memory issues were more strongly linked to risk factors like depression, socioeconomic status, and loneliness, while smartphone assessments can help identify early cognitive problems across different age groups.
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Research on neurodegenerative diseases has predominantly focused on high-income countries in the Global North. This Series paper describes the state of biomarker evidence for neurodegeneration in the Global South, including Latin America, Africa, and countries in south, east, and southeast Asia. Latin America shows growth in fluid biomarker and neuroimaging research, with notable advancements in genetics.

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  • Structural income inequality, defined as the uneven distribution of income across regions, affects brain dynamics and functions more significantly than individual factors like age or education.
  • This study used EEG signals from 1,394 healthy participants across 10 countries to explore how structural inequality predicts various brain activity metrics, revealing a connection between socioeconomic conditions and neural functioning.
  • Results show that higher structural income inequality is associated with lower brain signal complexity, increased random neural activity, and reduced power in certain brain wave frequencies, suggesting the need for a broader understanding of how social factors influence brain health.
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Many coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) positive individuals exhibit abnormal electroencephalographic (EEG) activity reflecting "brain fog" and mild cognitive impairments even months after the acute phase of infection. Resting-state EEG abnormalities include EEG slowing (reduced alpha rhythm; increased slow waves) and epileptiform activity. An expert panel conducted a systematic review to present compelling evidence that cognitive deficits due to COVID-19 and to Alzheimer's disease and related dementia (ADRD) are driven by overlapping pathologies and neurophysiological abnormalities.

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Background: Education influences brain health and dementia. However, its impact across regions, specifically Latin America (LA) and the United States (US), is unknown.

Methods: A total of 1412 participants comprising controls, patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) from LA and the US were included.

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  • Sleep capital is vital for individual and societal well-being, affecting cognitive abilities, mental health, and productivity, which in turn influences economic outcomes.
  • The framework presented explores the link between sleep quality, health, and economic productivity, highlighting significant benefits from investing in sleep health initiatives.
  • Policy recommendations and strategies for workplaces and individuals are proposed to enhance sleep health, emphasizing its importance for a healthier and more productive society.
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Background: Neurodegenerative diseases require collaborative, multisite research to comprehensively grasp their complex and diverse pathological progression; however, there is caution in aggregating global data due to data heterogeneity. In the current study, we investigated brain structure across stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and how relationships vary across sources of heterogeneity.

Methods: Using 6 international datasets (N > 27,000), associations of structural neuroimaging markers were investigated in relation to the AD continuum via meta-analysis.

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  • Ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic, alters global consciousness states and brain dynamics, with the study investigating its effects using portable low-density EEG systems instead of traditional methods.
  • The study involved 30 male adults in a double-blinded experiment comparing ketamine and saline, analyzing both resting-state and task-driven EEG, finding that ketamine increases redundancy in brain dynamics, especially at alpha frequencies.
  • High-order interactions (HOI) revealed that ketamine correlates with dissociative experiences and offers a novel approach to studying brain connectivity and dynamics during drug interventions.
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Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic, with over 83 million confirmed cases and 1.8 million deaths, has raised concerns about long-term cognitive issues, especially in populations facing disparities. Despite a few years since Peru's first COVID-19 wave, the cognitive effects on adults remain unclear.

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Brain clocks, which quantify discrepancies between brain age and chronological age, hold promise for understanding brain health and disease. However, the impact of multimodal diversity (geographical, socioeconomic, sociodemographic, sex, neurodegeneration) on the brain age gap (BAG) is unknown. Here, we analyzed datasets from 5,306 participants across 15 countries (7 Latin American countries -LAC, 8 non-LAC).

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  • - The text highlights the importance of allostasis (the body's way of adapting to stress) and interoception (awareness of internal bodily states) in regulating physiological responses to both environmental and bodily changes.
  • - It examines how disruptions in these processes relate to psychiatric and neurological disorders like anxiety, depression, and Alzheimer's disease, focusing on various biological mechanisms, including brain function and gut interactions.
  • - The review suggests that understanding allostatic interoceptive processes could enhance clinical applications and guide new therapeutic strategies, while also pointing out current limitations and the need for interdisciplinary research.
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Models of healthy aging are typically based on the United States and Europe and may not apply to diverse and heterogeneous populations. In this study, our objectives were to conduct a meta-analysis to assess risk factors of cognition and functional ability across aging populations in Latin America and a scoping review focusing on methodological procedures. Our study design included randomized controlled trials and cohort, case-control and cross-sectional studies using multiple databases, including MEDLINE, the Virtual Health Library and Web of Science.

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