Table. Baseline Demographic, Clinical, and Neuropathologic Characteristics of 40 Human Brains Studied.
| Characteristic | Cognitive status group, median (range) | P valuea | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Control (n = 8) | Resilient (n = 13) | Dementia (n = 19) | ||
| Age, mean (SD), y | 86.9 (7.4) | 86.2 (10.6) | 89.6 (6.3) | .92 |
| Sex, No. (%) | ||||
| Female | 4 (50) | 7 (54) | 8 (42) | .12 |
| Male | 4 (50) | 6 (46) | 11 (58) | |
| Years of education, mean (SD) | 17.5 (1.7) | 14.4 (1.7) | 17.4 (1.9) | .02 |
| Cognitive scoreb | .01 | |||
| MMSE, median (range)c | 29 (28-30) | 29.5 (29-30) | 26.5 (11-30) | <.001 |
| CDR-global, median (range)d | 0.3 (0-0.5) | 0 (0-0.5) | 1.0 (0-3.0) | <.001 |
| CDR-SoB, median (range)e | 0.5 (0-2.0) | 0 (0-0.5) | 6 (1.5-18.0) | .003 |
| WAIS-R subscore, median (range)f | 40.5 (36-48) | 46.5 (39-57) | 33 (18-46) | .006 |
| Boston Naming Test, median (range)g | 29 (28-30) | 27 (25-28) | 23 (8-30) | .009 |
| Trail Making Test, Part A, median (range)h | 35 (32-38) | 30 (26-44) | 46 (30-127) | .007 |
| Verbal fluency, animals, median (range)i | 18 (15-26) | 18 (15-22) | 11 (0-21) | <.001 |
| Verbal fluency, vegetables, median (range)j | 16 (9-22) | 15 (11-19) | 7 (2-12) | .01 |
| ApoE allele status, % | ||||
| ApoE2 allele | 8 | 7 | 13 | .34 |
| ApoE3 allele | 92 | 86 | 79 | |
| ApoE4 allele | 0 | 7 | 8 | |
| Brain weight, mean (SD), g | 1269 (224) | 1247 (162) | 1224 (123) | .14 |
| Neuropathology score | ||||
| Thal phase, median (range)k | 0 (0-4) | 2 (0-4) | 3 (0-5) | .92 |
| Braak stage, median (range)l | 1 (0-2) | 3 (3-4) | 4 (3-4) | .57 |
| CERAD score, median (range)m | 0 | 1 (0-2) | 1 (0-3) | .29 |
| Cerebral vascular composite score, mean (SD)n | 4.1 (1.7) | 2.8 (2) | 5.6 (2.5) | .008 |
| Postmortem interval, mean (SD), h | 23.5 (15.2) | 18 (14.2) | 19.8 (6.7) | .99 |
| Time of last clinical visit prior to death, mean (SD), y | 1.5 (2.2) | 0.6 (0.4) | 0.5 (0.4) | .99 |
| Duration of symptoms, mean (SD), y | NA | NA | 14.7 (6.5) | NA |
Abbreviations: CDR-global, Clinical Dementia Rating global; CDR-SoB: Clinical Dementia Rating-Sum of Boxes; CERAD, Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer Disease; MMSE: Mini-Mental State Examination; NA, not applicable; WAIS-R, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised.
P values are for differences between brains with dementia and resilient brains.
All antemortem cognitive measures were significantly worse in persons with dementia compared with persons with resilience, which were not significantly different from controls.
MMSE score ranges from 0 to 30, with 30 indicating better cognition.
CDR-global score ranges from 0 to 3, with 0 indicating better cognition.
CDR-SoB score ranges from 0 to 18, with 0 indicating better cognition.
WAIS-R score ranges from 0 to 93, with 93 indicating better cognition.
Boston Naming Test score ranges from 0 to 60, with 60 indicating better cognition.
Trail Making Test A score ranges from 0 to 100, with 0 indicating better cognition.
Verbal fluency (animals) score ranges from 0 to 77, with 77 indicating better cognition.
Verbal fluency (vegetables) score ranges from 0 to 77, with 77 indicating better cognition.
Thal phase includes no amyloid deposition (A0), amyloid in neocortex (A1), amyloid in allocortex and limbic region (A2), amyloid in diencephalon and basal ganglia (A3), amyloid in brainstem and midbrain (A4), and amyloid in cerebellum (A5).
Braak stage, includes Braak stages I and II when neurofibrillary tangle involvement is confined to the transentorhinal and entorhinal regions of the brain, stages III and IV when there is involvement of limbic regions including hippocampus, and stages V and VI when there is extensive neocortical involvement.
CERAD score includes no neuritic plaques (C0), sparse plaques (C1), moderate plaques (C2), and frequent plaques (C3).
Cerebral vascular composite score includes subscores for hypertensive cerebrovascular, atherosclerosis, cerebral atherosclerosis, occlusive atherosclerosis, and cerebral amyloid angiopathy score.