Study details

For the study, researchers recruited 4,400 people between the ages of 65 and 85 from the United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia who had memory loss and trouble solving problems. They asked the participants whether either of their parents had ever been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and when their parent's memory started to fail. The researchers then compared those answers to the levels of amyloid protein plaques — a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease — in the participants' brains.

They found that having a father who developed Alzheimer's symptoms later in life didn't appear to be related to levels of amyloid in people's brains. However, they did find a correlation between the accumulation of amyloid and having a mother whose Alzheimer's symptoms began at any age or having a father whose symptoms started relatively early.

"If your father had early-onset symptoms, that is associated with elevated [amyloid] levels in the offspring," said Mabel Set, a postdoctoral research fellow at Mass General's department of neurology and first author on the study. "However, it doesn't matter when your mother started developing symptoms — if she did at all, it's associated with elevated amyloid."

As a result, the researchers said that people with an Alzheimer's-affected mother could be at a special risk of developing the disease themselves.

"Maternal inheritance of Alzheimer's disease may be an important factor in identifying asymptomatic individuals for ongoing and future prevention trials," said Reisa Sperling, a neurologist at Mass General and a co-author of the study.

The researchers noted that the sex of the participant didn't seem to matter when it came to the correlation between amyloid buildup and parental history.

"It's also important to note a majority of these participants are non-Hispanic white," Seto added. "We might not see the same effect in other races and ethnicities." (Mundell, U.S. News & World Report, 6/17; Massey, The Independent, 6/17; Haseltine, Forbes, 9/13)

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