Relating Education, Brain Structure, and Cognition: The Role of Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors

Table 3

Bivariate associations between education, cardiovascular risk factors, regional brain volumes, and cognitive test performance.

Cognitive Tests

GM

WM

Education

CVD; risk factors

IR

DR

DB

SDMT

STW

COWAT A

COWAT F

TMT-A

TMT-B

BNT

Male

Grey matter

Region 1

—

0.516***

0.424***

−0.108

0.173*

0.095

0.093

0.267**

0.175*

0.188*

0.151

−0.183*

−0.051

0.085

White matter

Region 2

—

—

0.437***

−0.235**

0.153

0.086

−0.012

0.095

0.112

0.148

0.105

−0.157

−0.062

0.067

Education

—

—

—

−0.185*

0.124

0.101

0.187*

0.240**

0.331**

0.240**

0.273***

−0.197*

−0.133

0.033

CVRF

—

—

—

—

−0.033

0.005

−0.082

−0.095

−0.047

−0.051

−0.079

0.174*

0.129

0.064

Age

−0.042

−0.103

0.000

−0.056

0.115

0.072

−0.073

−0.169*

0.214*

0.163

0.001

0.076

0.199*

0.030

Female

No correlations between regional volumes, education, and cognition were performed in women

GM: grey matter regional volumes, WM: white matter regional volumes, CVD risk factors: cardiovascular disease risk factors, IR: California Verbal Learning test for immediate recall, DR: California verbal learning test for delayed recall, DB: digit span backwards from the Wechsler Memory Scale, SDMT: Symbol-Digit Modalities Test, STW: Spot the Word Test, COWAT-A: Controlled Oral Word Association Test for A-words, COWAT-F: Controlled Oral Word Association Test for F-words, TMT-A: Trail Making Test Part A, TMT-B: Trail Making Test Part B, and BNT: Boston Naming Test.
; ; ; —: no effect to report.