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Grey matter correlates of susceptibility to scams in community-dwelling older adults

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ABSTRACT

Susceptibility to scams is a significant issue among older adults, even among those with intact cognition. Age-related changes in brain macrostructure may be associated with susceptibility to scams; however, this has yet to be explored. Based on previous work implicating frontal and temporal lobe functioning as important in decision making, we tested the hypothesis that susceptibility to scams is associated with smaller grey matter volume in frontal and temporal lobe regions in a large community-dwelling cohort of non-demented older adults. Participants (N = 327, mean age = 81.55, mean education = 15.30, 78.9 % female) completed a self-report measure used to assess susceptibility to scams and an MRI brain scan. Results indicated an inverse association between overall grey matter and susceptibility to scams in models adjusted for age, education, and sex; and in models further adjusted for cognitive function. No significant associations were observed for white matter, cerebrospinal fluid, or total brain volume. Models adjusted for age, education, and sex revealed seven clusters showing smaller grey matter in the right parahippocampal/hippocampal/fusiform, left middle temporal, left orbitofrontal, right ventromedial prefrontal, right middle temporal, right precuneus, and right dorsolateral prefrontal regions. In models further adjusted for cognitive function, results revealed three significant clusters showing smaller grey matter in the right parahippocampal/hippocampal/fusiform, right hippocampal, and right middle temporal regions. Lower grey matter concentration in specific brain regions may be associated with susceptibility to scams, even after adjusting for cognitive ability. Future research is needed to determine whether grey matter reductions in these regions may be a biomarker for susceptibility to scams in old age.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by National Institute on Aging grants R01AG017917, R01AG033678, K23AG040625, the American Federation for Aging Research, and the Illinois Department of Public Health. The authors gratefully thank the Rush Memory and Aging Project staff and participants.

Disclosure statement

S. Duke Han, Patricia A. Boyle, Lei Yu, Konstantinos Arfanakis, Bryan D. James, Debra Fleischman, and David A. Bennett declare no conflicts of interests.

Ethical statement

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, and the applicable revisions at the time of the investigation. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

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Duke Han, S., Boyle, P.A., Yu, L. et al. Grey matter correlates of susceptibility to scams in community-dwelling older adults. Brain Imaging and Behavior 10, 524–532 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-015-9422-4

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