Page 50 - MaquetaFundCIEN-2019-ENG

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Annual Report 2019
2. The relationship between cognitive reserve and socioeconomic status with the onset of cognitive impairment
The cognitive reserve is a theoretical construct that formulated several decades ago to explain the lack of correspondence between the degree of brain dam- age and clinical symptoms sometimes observed among patients. It is presumed as an individual capacity that develops throughout the life cycle fundamentally through formal education, the type of professional activity performed and the intellectual activity developed. Numerous studies have supported the protective role played by the cognitive reserve in modifying the course of different neuro- degenerative pathologies, including Alzheimer’s disease. Likewise, the socioec- onomic status associated with a person’s area of residence can be understood as an environmental factor that determines to some extent the probability of developing a possible cognitive impairment.
The interest of the department of Neuropsychology for this construct focuses on analyzing different variables that apparently have the capacity to confer cogni- tive reserve and therefore could play a protective role against cognitive impair- ment. Within the Vallecas Project, this set of variables is being studied individually and as groups, with special emphasis on the activities of daily life performed during mid-life. Likewise, different variables of lifestyle are examined in order to classify them as risk or protective factors against the appearance of dementia. The results have shown that both the variables associated with the individual so- cioeconomic level and those associated with the neighborhood of residence play a complementary role in the conversion to cognitive impairment.
3. Spain-Portugal Longevity Research Program (PILEP + 90)
PILEP + 90 is a research project designed to examine the role of biological and environmental determinants associated with longevity and, more specifically, de- mentia-free longevity. For this, the study analyzes different variables associated with cognition, health, lifestyles and brain structure in two cohorts of people over 90 from Madrid and Braga.
The research program is led by the CIEN Foundation Neuropsychology depart- ment and it includes researchers from four different institutions in Spain (CIEN Foundation, Madrid Health Autonomous Organization, Complutense University of Madrid, and Biomedical Technology Center), Portugal (University of Minho) and Denmark (University of Southern Denmark) throughout three research subpro- jects:
• “Factors associated with healthy and pathological aging in a sample of people over 90 years from the city of Madrid (MADRID+90)”, led by Dr. Miguel Ángel Fernández-Blázquez, head of the Department of Neuropsychology of the CIEN Foundation.
• “Factors associated with healthy and pathological aging in a sample of people over 90 years of age in the Braga region (BRAGA+90)”, led by Dr. Nadine Correia Santos from the University of Minho.
• “Application of data mining techniques for the identification of factors of healthy