Autores: Andreas Ihle; David Bunce; Matthias Kliegel.
Resumen
It is well established that Apolipoprotein E (APOE) e4 allele is associated with cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease in old age. By contrast, several studies have a pleiotropic association with cognition across the life span where e4-related benefits in youth reverse to become risk factors for cognitive impairment and dementia in later life. To date, thougth, there has been no broad quantitative review of work assessing APOE-cognition associations in children, adolescents and young adults. Method: Based on 20 studies investigating cognitive performance in e4-carrying young persons and their none4 counteraparts, a meta-analytic study was conducted to examine APOE e4-related differences in cognitive performance. Aditionality, we assesed whether the level of executive demands affected the strength of associations between the e4 allele and cognitive measures. Results: In all analyses, estimated APOE e4-related population effect sizes did not reliably differ from zero. Furthermore, the level of executive demands of the task did not affect this finding. Conlusion: We found no APOE e4-related cognitive benefies in young adults, adolescents and children, and findings were not moderated by the level of executive demands in a cognitive task. Given the current empirical evidence therefore, suggestions that APOE e4 exihibts a pleiotropic association with cognition across the life span should be traated with caution.
