Older adults who are more vulnerable to financial scams may have brain changes linked to an increased 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 have Alzheimer’s disease, the fifth leading cause of death among people 65 and older. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, the disease will cost $360 billion in health care costs this year alone.
Researchers led by Duke Han, a 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 brain’s learning and memory center) and the medial prefrontal cortex, which regulates emotion, motivation and other cognitive functions. It’s often the first region to show changes in Alzheimer’s disease, and it typically becomes thinner as the disease progresses.
None of the study participants, aged 52 to 83, showed clinical signs of cognitive decline, but all underwent MRI scans to measure the thickness of their entorhinal cortex.
Additionally, the researchers used a standardized tool called the Perceived Vulnerability to Financial Exploitation Scale (PFVS) to assess participants’ financial awareness and susceptibility to poor financial decisions, which they refer to as “financial exploitation vulnerability” or FEV.
When comparing adults’ FEV1 to the thickness of their entorhinal cortex, Han and team found a significant correlation: those most vulnerable to financial scams had a thinner entorhinal cortex.
This was especially true for participants aged 70 years or older. Previous research has linked FEV to mild cognitive impairment, dementia and certain molecular brain changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Han, who holds a joint appointment at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, 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 could help identify those who are in the early stages of mild cognitive impairment or dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease,” Han said. He added, however, that financial vulnerability alone is not a definitive indicator of Alzheimer’s disease or other cognitive decline. “But assessing FEV1 could become part of a broader risk profile,” he said.
Han also noted several limitations of the study. Most of the participants were older, white, and highly educated women, making it difficult to generalize the findings to a more diverse population. Also, while the study found a relationship between entorhinal cortex thickness and FEV1, it did not test for it. Finally, the study did not include specific measurements of Alzheimer’s disease pathology.
These limitations leave open the possibility that the relationship between FEV and entorhinal cortex thinning may be explained by other factors. Accordingly, Han said further research is needed, including long-term studies with diverse populations, before FEV can be considered a reliable cognitive assessment tool.