Associations of Later-Life Education, the BDNF Val66Met Polymorphism and Cognitive Change in Older Adults Ward, DD, Summers, MJ, Valenzuela, MJ, Srikanth, VK, Summers, JJ, King, AE, Ritchie, K, Robinson, AL and Vickers, JC 2019, Associations of Later-Life Education, the BDNF Val66Met Polymorphism and Cognitive Change in Older Adults, The Journal of Prevention of Alzeimer's Disease, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 37-42, doi: 10.14283/jpad.2019.40. Title Associations of Later-Life Education, the BDNF Val66Met Polymorphism and Cognitive Change in Older Adults Author(s) Ward, DD Summers, MJ Valenzuela, MJ Srikanth, VK Summers, JJ King, AE Ritchie, K Robinson, AL Vickers, JC Journal name The Journal of Prevention of Alzeimer's Disease Volume number 7 Issue number 1 Start page 37 End page 42 Total pages 6 Publisher Springer Place of publication Berlin, Germany Publication date 2019-10-10 ISSN 2274-5807 2426-0266 Keyword(s) BDNF Clinical Neurology cognitive DECLINE Education HEALTHY intervention Life Sciences & Biomedicine Neurosciences & Neurology Science & Technology university Summary In 358 participants of the Tasmanian Healthy Brain Project, we quantified the cognitive consequences of engaging in varying loads of university-level education in later life, and investigated whether or not BDNF Val66Met affected outcomes. Assessment of neuropsychological, health, and psychosocial function was undertaken at baseline, 12-month, and 24-month follow-up. Education load was positively associated with change in language processing performance, but this effect did not reach statistical significance (P = 0.064). The BDNF Val66Met polymorphism significantly moderated the extent to which education load was associated with improved language processing (P = 0.026), with education load having a significant positive relationship with cognitive change in BDNF Met carriers but not in BDNF Val homozygotes. In older adults who carry BDNF Met, engaging in university-level education improves language processing performance in a load-dependent manner. Language eng DOI 10.14283/jpad.2019.40 HERDC Research category C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30164031 Document type: Journal Article Collection: Faculty of Health Related Links Link Description Connect to published version Go to link with your DU access privileges   Author URL Go to link with your DU access privileges   Connect to Elements publication management system Go to link with your DU access privileges     Unless expressly stated otherwise, the copyright for items in DRO is owned by the author, with all rights reserved. Versions Version Filter Type Thu, 10 Mar 2022, 07:04:58 EST Thu, 10 Mar 2022, 16:01:28 EST Thu, 10 Mar 2022, 16:03:38 EST Sat, 26 Mar 2022, 01:31:59 EST Wed, 06 Apr 2022, 16:24:23 EST Tue, 02 Aug 2022, 12:53:39 EST Filtered Full Citation counts:   Cited 3 times in TR Web of Science Cited 0 times in Scopus Search Google Scholar Access Statistics: 1 Abstract Views  -  Detailed Statistics Created: Thu, 10 Mar 2022, 07:04:58 EST