Researchers report that a gene variation that appears more frequently in women than men may help explain the long-established fact that females are more likely to develop the debilitating disease.

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly

MedPage Today:

In a cohort of cognitively healthy older men and women, carrying the E4 variant was associated with deficits in brain connectivity in women, but not in men, according to Michael Greicius, MD, of the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, Calif., and colleagues.

The sex difference was also apparent, in a separate cohort, in levels of the Alzheimer’s-associated protein tau in cerebrospinal fluid, Greicius and colleagues reported in the June 13 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

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#genetics#neuroscience#palo alto#stanford university