Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Parenthood is a dramatic life transformation that has profound effects on the brain. However, its effects have mostly been studied in the short term (during pregnancy and the postpartum period) and in females. In the long term, multiple pregnancies increase the risk for conditions like Alzheimer's disease, stroke, cardiovascular disease, and obesity. Females who have had multiple pregnancies are at a higher risk of developing dementia, have an earlier onset of Alzheimer's disease, and show worse symptoms. Factors such as genes (APOE, a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease) and female-specific factors such as age of menopause, sex of the baby, and hormone therapies can affect cognition. However, the long-term effects of these factors on brain aging and cognition have received very little attention. To better understand the effects of parenthood on cognition later in life, it is important to study large populations and take genes and female-specific factors into account. This study investigates how parenthood and genes (APOE) along with sociological factors (age and education) affect cognition in older females and males using a large Canadian database (The Canadian Longitudinal Study of Aging). These findings will advance our understanding of how parenthood influences brain aging and cognitive decline in older females and males. Our work indicates that having 4 or more children is associated with worse cognition in different cognitive tasks. An older age of menopause was also associated with better performance on several tests. We also found that carrying 2 copies of a gene known as APOE e4 leads to worse performance on cognitive tests. These results suggest that there is a long-lasting impact of having children on cognition in males and females. Further isolating specific risk factors and incidence trends could have a significant impact on the future treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.