Premium
Are developmental learning disorders risk factors for late‐onset Alzheimer's disease?
Author(s) -
Leiman Marina,
Guinjoan Salvador Martín,
Brusco Luis Ignacio,
Villarreal Mirta Fabiana,
Fiorentini Leticia
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.713
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1552-5279
pISSN - 1552-5260
DOI - 10.1002/alz.052203
Subject(s) - primary progressive aphasia , dementia , disease , vulnerability (computing) , psychology , atrophy , developmental psychology , medicine , clinical psychology , audiology , frontotemporal dementia , computer security , computer science
Background Factors associated with early life educational performance can be related to neurodevelopment, cognitive functioning and, consequently, the risk for dementia, but have received less attention than adult biomarkers. Method A systematic review of the evidence available up to October 2020 in PubMed and Scopus was carried out. Original articles addressing both developmental learning disorders (LD) and late‐onset neurodegenerative diseases (NDD) were included. Result A significant prevalence of LD was found in patients with atypical variants of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Furthermore, an association was found between primary progressive aphasia ‐ logopenic variant and language‐related LD, and also between posterior cortical atrophy and non‐language‐related LD. These results could be explained by the selective vulnerability hypothesis, which states that the vulnerability of a particular brain network or area could predispose both to developmental LD and late‐onset NDD. Conclusion Developmental LDs can be considered as risk factors for late‐onset NDD, especially for atypical AD variants. Given the scarcity of results and the limitations reported, a greater number of studies are required, with larger samples and, preferably, of longitudinal design in order to address this issue.