Older adults who are more vulnerable to financial scams may have brain changes linked to a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a first-of-its-kind study led by researchers at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
Nearly 7 million Americans live with Alzheimer’s disease, the fifth leading cause of death among people over 65. The disease is estimated to cost $360 billion in health care costs this year alone, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
Researchers led by Duke Han, professor of psychology and family medicine at USC Dornsife, sought to better understand the link between early Alzheimer’s disease and financial vulnerability by using high-powered MRI to examine the brains of 97 study participants over the age of 50.
The scientists focused on the entorhinal cortex, a region that acts as a relay station between the hippocampus; the learning and memory center of the brain -; and the medial prefrontal cortex, which regulates emotion, motivation, and other cognitive functions. It is often the first area to show changes in Alzheimer’s disease, typically becoming thinner as the disease progresses.
None of the study participants, aged 52 to 83, showed clinical signs of cognitive impairment, but all underwent MRI scans to measure the thickness of their entorhinal cortex.
Additionally, the researchers used a standardized tool, the Perceived Financial Exploitation Vulnerability Scale (PFVS), to assess participants’ financial awareness and their susceptibility to poor financial decisions, which they call “financial exploitation vulnerability” (FEV).
Comparing adults’ FEV with the thickness of their entorhinal cortex, Han and team found a significant correlation: those who were more vulnerable to financial scams had a thinner entorhinal cortex.
This was especially true for participants aged 70 and over. Previous research has linked FEV to mild cognitive impairment, dementia and certain molecular brain changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Han, who has a joint appointment at USC’s Keck School of Medicine, says the findings provide crucial evidence supporting the idea that FEV could be a new clinical tool for detecting cognitive changes in older adults; changes that are often difficult to detect.
Assessing financial vulnerability in older adults can help identify those in the early stages of mild cognitive impairment or dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.”
Duke Han, professor of psychology and family medicine at USC Dornsife
However, he added that financial vulnerability alone is not a definitive indicator of Alzheimer’s disease or other cognitive decline. “But assessing FEV can become part of a broader risk profile,” he said.
Han also noted several limitations of the study. Most participants were older, white, highly educated women, making it difficult to generalize the findings to a more diverse population. Furthermore, although the study showed a link between entorhinal cortex thickness and FEV, it does not prove a link. Finally, the study does not include specific measures of Alzheimer’s disease pathology.
These limitations leave open the possibility that the relationship between FEV and entorhinal cortex thinning could be explained by other factors. Accordingly, Han said more research is needed, including long-term studies with diverse populations, before FEV can be considered a reliable cognitive assessment tool.
About the study
In addition to Han, the study’s authors also include Laura Fenton, Aaron Lim, Jenna Axelrod and Daisy Noriega-Makarskyy of USC Dornsife; Lauren Salminen, Hussein Yassine and Laura Mosqueda of USC’s Keck School of Medicine; Gali Weissberger of Israel’s Bar-Ilan University; and Annie Nguyen of the University of California, San Diego.
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Magazine reference:
Fenton, L., et al. (2024) Lower entorhinal cortex thickness is associated with greater vulnerability to financial exploitation in cognitively unimpaired older adults. Cerebral cortex. doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhae360.