by Currently, around 7 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s, which is the fifth leading cause of death for individuals over 65. The Alzheimer’s Association predicts that healthcare costs associated with the disease will rise to $360 billion by 2022.
In an effort to explore the link between Alzheimer’s and financial vulnerability, researchers, led by Duke Han, professor of psychology and family medicine at USC Dornsife, used high-resolution MRI to study the brains of 97 participants aged 50 and older.
None of the participants had any visible signs of cognitive impairment. They underwent MRI scans to measure the thickness of the entorhinal cortex, while the researchers used the Perceived Financial Exploitation Vulnerability Scale (PFVS) to evaluate their financial decision-making awareness and vulnerability to financial exploitation (FEV).
These factors leave open the possibility that other explanations could account for the link between financial vulnerability and entorhinal cortex thinning. Han stressed that more research, particularly long-term studies involving diverse groups, is required before FEV can be widely used as a Cognitive System Spending assessment tool.
The study was published in *Cerebral Cortex*. Study authors included Duke Han, Laura Fenton, Aaron Lim, Jenna Axelrod, Daisy Noriega-Makarskyy from USC Dornsife; Lauren Salminen, Hussein Yassine, and Laura Mosqueda from USC’s Keck School of Medicine; Gali Weissberger of Bar-Ilan University in Israel; and Annie Nguyen from the University of California, San Diego.
*Note:
1. Source: Coherent Market Insights, Public sources, Desk research
2. We have leveraged AI tools to mine information and compile it
