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Updated: May 7, 2025
Evaluation of Motor Impairment in C. elegans Models of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Published on: September 2, 2021
Education moderates the association between motor involvement and executive status in ALS
Edoardo Nicolò Aiello1, Barbara Poletti1,2, Monica Consonni3
1Department of Neurology and Laboratory of Neuroscience, IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milan, Italy.
Background:
This study aimed to determine whether educational attainment-a common proxy of cognitive reserve (CR)-influences the association between motor and cognitive/behavioural outcomes in a large cohort of ALS patients without dementia.
Methods:
N = 726 ALS patients without FTD were assessed for motor (ALSFRS-R), cognitive (Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural ALS Screen, ECAS) and behavioural outcomes (ECAS-Carer Interview, ECAS-CI). CR was operationalized via educational attainment (in years). Moderation models were run on each subscale of the cognitive section of the ECAS and on the ECAS-CI by addressing ALSFRS-R as the predictor and education as the moderator.
Results:
Education was associated with both the ALSFRS-R and all the cognitive subscales of the ECAS, while not with the ECAS-CI. As to moderation models, a significant Education*ALSFRS-R interaction was detected solely with regard to the ECAS-Executive-with its simple slope-based decomposition revealing that higher ALSFRS-R scores were associated with higher scores on the ECAS-Executive for patients with low (p < 0.001) and average (p = 0.007), while not high, levels of education.
Discussion:
Education seems to moderate the association between motor involvement and executive status in ALS patients without dementia, thus possibly exerting a protective role towards both motor function and cognition in this population.
