Educational level influences regional cerebral blood flow in patients with Alzheimer's disease.

Unlabelled: We tested the hypothesis that educational level influences regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients.

Methods: The severity of AD was measured with the Cognitive Ability Screening Instrument (age and education adjusted). rCBF was assessed using (99m)Tc-hexamethylpropyleneamine oxime brain SPECT; differences in rCBF between groups with different educational levels were determined using statistical parametric mapping (SPM).

Results: In matched low-education (< or =6 y; n = 29) and high-education (>6 y; n = 29) groups, SPM revealed 2 statistically significant clusters of voxels with higher rCBF in the high-education group: one in the left lateral inferior, middle, and superior temporal gyrus; another in the left medial temporal area to the left inferior frontal gyrus.

Conclusion: We provide biologic evidence that education may lead to relatively higher rCBF in specific areas in AD patients, which may explain the effects of education on clinical manifestations of AD.