Gender-specificities in Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment.

Background: Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is a condition with an increased risk for developing Alzheimer's disease (AD). Presently, gender differences are neglected in the assessment of MCI and AD.

Methods: We examined verbal and visuospatial episodic memory in 143 subjects diagnosed as healthy controls (HC; N = 48, Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) 29.2 +/- 1.0 (mean +/- standard deviation)), MCI (N = 43,MMSE 28.5 +/- 1.4), and AD (N = 49, MMSE 25.1 +/- 2.2).

Findings: Female HC and MCI subjects performed better on verbal episodic memory tasks than males. In contrast, visuospatial episodic memory was better in male than female AD patients.

Conclusions: We interpret the results in light of a gender-specific cognitive reserve and conclude that the gender-specificity of neuropsychological performance needs to be accounted for in clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.