Mitigating cellular aging and enhancing cognitive functionality: visual arts-mediated Cognitive Activation Therapy in neurocognitive disorders

The growing phenomenon of population aging is redefining demographic dynamics, intensifying age-related conditions, especially dementia, projected to triple by 2050 with an enormous global economic burden. This study investigates visual arts-mediated Cognitive Activation Therapy (CAT) as a non-pharmacological CAT intervention targets both biological aging [leukocyte telomere length (LTL), DNA methylation age (DNAmAge)] and cognitive functionality. Aligning with a broader trend of integrating non-pharmacological approaches into dementia care. The longitudinal study involved 20 patients with mild to moderate neurocognitive disorders. Cognitive and functional assessments, and biological aging markers -i.e., LTL and DNAmAge- were analyzed before and after CAT intervention. Change in LTL was positively correlated with days of treatment (p =0.0518). LTL significantly elongated after intervention (p =0.0269), especially in men (p =0.0142), correlating with younger age (p =0.0357), and higher education (p =0.0008). DNAmAge remained instead stable post-treatment. Cognitive and functional improvements were observed for Copy of complex geometric figure, Progressive Silhouettes, Position Discrimination, Communication Activities of Daily Living-Second edition, Direct Functional Status (p < 0.0001) and Object decision (p =0.0594), but no correlations were found between LTL and cognitive gains. Visual arts-mediated CAT effectively mitigates cellular aging, especially in men, by elongating LTL. These findings underscore the potential of non-pharmacological interventions in enhancing cognitive and functional status and general well-being in dementia care. Further research with larger and longer-term studies is essential for validation.

An APOE haplotype associated with decreased ε4 expression increases the risk of late onset Alzheimer's disease

This paper addresses a tenet of the literature on APOE, i.e., the relationship between the effects of the ε4, one of the established genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD), and its expression levels as determined by APOE promoter polymorphisms. Five polymorphisms (-491 rs449647, -427 rs769446, -219 rs405509, and ε rs429358-rs7412) were studied in 1308 AD patients and 1082 control individuals from the Central-Northern Italy. Major findings of the present study are the following: 1) the variants -219T and ε4 increase the risk for late onset AD (LOAD) when they are both present in cis on the same chromosome (in phase); 2) the correlation between the haplotype (-219T/ε4) and AD risk persists when the data are stratified by age; 3) this haplotype likely anticipates the age of onset of the disease. These data, while confirming the association between -219T and AD, highlight the importance of the phase of the alleles for the observed effects on AD risk, suggesting that this information has to be taken into account when assessing the AD genetic risk. Moreover, the data help to clarify the apparent discrepancy that emerges from the genetic analysis where an SNP characterizing the haplotype responsible for an increased risk for LOAD is coherently associated with a reduced expression of ApoE levels. Our data are compatible with the hypothesis of a complex role of ApoE in the AD pathogenesis, with positive and negative effects occurring concomitantly according to its expression levels and its protein-protein interactions largely unclarified.