For many years, researchers have thought that higher levels of education protect against cognitive decline in later years, including dementia. An international team including Prof Rik Henson (@rhens.bsky.social) at the MRC CBU have just reported a meta-analysis across 33 countries which showed that, while more education is indeed associated with better cognitive and brain health in later life, it does not reduce the rate of decline of cognitive and brain health over subsequent years. This cross-sectional but not longitudinal association is more likely to reflect stable, early-life differences between people (e.g., genetics), which lead to different degrees of education, rather than education protecting against ageing and dementia.

The full paper was published today in Nature Medicine: Fjell, A.M., Rogeberg, O., Sørensen, Ø. et al. Reevaluating the role of education on cognitive decline and brain aging in longitudinal cohorts across 33 Western countries. Nat Med (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-03828-y

Contact Rik Henson for more information.