New research shows that women's brains have a better track record for verbal memory as compared to men. However, this can be a disadvantage for women with Alzheimer's disease because this could delay early diagnosis.
Verbal memory is associated with the hippocampus which shrinks when a person has Alzheimer's disease. The study found that despite the same rate of shrinkage observed in men and women, the verbal memory of women still performed better.
"Throughout life, women outperform men on verbal memory tasks," Dr. Erin Sundermann said, Ph.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. "We predict that this female advantage may reflect a sex-specific form of cognitive reserve resulting in a delay in the clinical manifestation of memory impairment until more advanced neurodegeneration overwhelms the female advantage and decline begins."
The study was published in Neurology, The Official Journal of the American Academy of Neurology. They used a sample from the Alzheimer's disease Neuroimaging Initiative. This included 379 participants without any cognitive or mental disorders, 694 participants with amnestic mild cognitive impairment, and 235 participants with Alzheimer's disease and dementia.
Their results showed that women outperformed men both in delayed and immediate recall tests. The only time that men and women had similar results was when there was significant shrinkage in the hippocampus, common among patients with Alzheimer's.
For the patients who have been diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, their hippocampus's were shrinking at the same rate but it did not affect the verbal memory among women. This means that by the time the disease has been detected among women, it may be in its advanced stages.
Compared to men whose verbal memory deteriorates at the early stages, they are easily diagnosed and treated. According to Science Daily, doctors would need to adjust their memory tests for women so that they may detect the disease sooner and be able to provide the necessary treatment if the study is proven to be true.
