ABCA7 Genotype Moderates the Effect of Aerobic Exercise Intervention on Generalization of Prior Learning in Healthy Older African Americans.

African Americans are at elevated risk for age-related cognitive decline, with double the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) compared to Caucasians Americans. Various behavioral, biological, and lifestyle factors may underlie this health disparity, but little is known about the relative importance and interactions among these different risk factors in African Americans. While the neuroprotective effects of aerobic exercise on biomarkers are well established, few studies have examined the differential benefits of exercise based on genetic risk for AD.

Recruiting Older African Americans to Brain Health and Aging Research Through Community Engagement: Lessons from the African-American Brain Health Initiative at Rutgers University-Newark.

The African-American Brain Health Initiative at Rutgers University-Newark is a university-community partnership combining community engagement, education and training, and brain health research. Partnering with community-based organizations, it promotes brain health literacy, Alzheimer's awareness, brain-healthy lifestyle choices, and participation in brain research for older African Americans in Greater Newark, New Jersey. Our approach to recruitment relies on building trust through long-term relationships; communicating health knowledge through trusted community leaders; recruiting subjects through targeted efforts; and cultivating research participants as ambassadors.

ABCA7 risk variant in healthy older African Americans is associated with a functionally isolated entorhinal cortex mediating deficient generalization of prior discrimination training.

Using high-resolution resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the present study tested the hypothesis that ABCA7 genetic risk differentially affects intra-medial temporal lobe (MTL) functional connectivity between MTL subfields, versus internetwork connectivity of the MTL with the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), in nondemented older African Americans. Although the association of ABCA7 risk variants with Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been confirmed worldwide, its effect size on the relative odds of being diagnosed with AD is significantly higher in African Americans. However, little is known about the neural correlates of cognitive function in older African Americans and how they relate to AD risk conferred by ABCA7.

APOE ε4 status in healthy older African Americans is associated with deficits in pattern separation and hippocampal hyperactivation.

African Americans are 1.4 times more likely than European Americans to carry the apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele, a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, little is known about the neural correlates of cognitive function in older African Americans and how they relate to genetic risk for AD.