{"id":38191,"date":"2024-11-24T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-24T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=38191"},"modified":"2024-11-25T07:02:54","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T07:02:54","slug":"vulnerability-to-financial-scams-in-aging-adults-could-be-an-early-indicator-of-alzheimers-disease-new-research-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/vulnerability-to-financial-scams-in-aging-adults-could-be-an-early-indicator-of-alzheimers-disease-new-research-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"Vulnerability to financial scams in aging adults could be an early indicator of Alzheimer\u2019s disease, new research shows"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Laura Fenton<\/a>, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences<\/a><\/em> and Duke Han<\/a>, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A brain region affected very early in Alzheimer\u2019s disease may explain why some aging people are at greater risk of financial exploitation. That is the key finding of our new study<\/a>, published in the journal Cerebral Cortex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are a clinical psychology doctoral student<\/a> and a clinical neuropsychologist<\/a>, and we are interested in understanding whether greater likelihood of being financially exploited \u2013 such as being the victim of a scam \u2013 may be a behavioral indicator of future cognitive decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other research supports this idea<\/a>. However, research on associations between vulnerability to financial exploitation and structural brain regions is limited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We examined the association between vulnerability to financial exploitation and thickness of a brain region called the entorhinal cortex \u2013 which is affected very early by Alzheimer\u2019s disease<\/a> \u2013 in a group of 97 adults age 52 to 83 with no signs of cognitive impairment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entorhinal cortex is critical for communication between the hippocampus, important for memory retrieval and forecasting oneself into the future<\/a>, and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which is important for value judgments<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We therefore hypothesized that thinning of this region may impair the ability to draw on prior experiences and envision future consequences when assessing the value of certain decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our study found that lower thickness of the entorhinal cortex, as measured via brain scan, was associated with higher financial vulnerability, as measured by a self-report questionnaire. We did not observe associations between vulnerability to financial exploitation and thickness of two regions of the frontal cortex, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. These frontal cortex regions are more typically associated with decision-making<\/a>, but less so with early Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Being the victim of a scam could be an early indicator of future cognitive decline. jeffbergen\/E+ via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Why it matters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Our primary goal is to aid in early detection of Alzheimer\u2019s disease. Early detection is critically important because Alzheimer\u2019s disease-related brain changes begin decades before significant clinical symptoms<\/a> emerge. As a result, often by the time a person receives a diagnosis of Alzheimer\u2019s disease, irreparable brain damage has already occurred. This makes intervention and treatment efforts very challenging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our study adds to a growing body of work<\/a> suggesting that impaired financial decision-making may serve as an early behavioral warning sign of future cognitive decline<\/a>. This could help identify individuals in the early stages of disease when intervention and treatment efforts may be more effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Importantly, however, research does not suggest that all older adults who experience financial exploitation will develop Alzheimer\u2019s disease. Indeed, there are many other reasons someone may be at increased risk for financial exploitation, including psychosocial<\/a>, physical<\/a> and environmental factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather, research by our group and others suggests that vulnerability to financial exploitation may serve as one important piece<\/a> of a risk profile and could alert people to the possible need for further, more comprehensive testing. For example, blood tests for Alzheimer\u2019s disease neuropathology, brain scans and neuropsychological testing could provide people with a more thorough understanding of their risk for future cognitive decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What still isn\u2019t known<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are important limitations to our study. We collected all of the data at one time point and did not have specific measurements of Alzheimer\u2019s disease neuropathology. So it is unclear whether differences in thickness were truly the result of Alzheimer\u2019s disease-related brain changes or merely due to preexisting differences or other reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, our participants were primarily white, female and highly educated. This limits our ability to generalize the findings, a gap that will be important to address in future research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our lab is following participants over time and adding measures of Alzheimer\u2019s disease pathology to our study. This will help us understand whether changes in brain structure over time lead to increased vulnerability to financial exploitation and whether these changes are associated with early Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Research Brief<\/a> is a short take on interesting academic work.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laura Fenton<\/a>, PhD student in Clinical Psychology, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences<\/a><\/em> and Duke Han<\/a>, Professor of Psychology and Family Medicine, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Laura Fenton, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and Duke Han, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences A brain region affected very early in Alzheimer\u2019s disease may explain why some aging people are at greater risk of financial exploitation. That is the key finding of our new study, published in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":38192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,42,10,36,27,3410,15533],"tags":[11032,3521,1162,1099,15772,885,891,886,860,15438],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38191"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38193,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38191\/revisions\/38193"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}