An Alzheimer's biomarker study followed people with late mild cognitive impairment and measured how quickly their cognition declined — a different, less-detailed endpoint than the same paper's headline CSF biomarker findings.
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a stage of measurable cognitive decline beyond what is expected for someone's age, but not severe enough to be called dementia. Not everyone with MCI goes on to develop dementia, and among those who do, the rate of decline varies substantially from person to person. This page covers genetic variants associated with that rate of decline specifically, measured within a group of people who already had "late" MCI — a more advanced sub-stage — when they enrolled in a research study.
Li et al. 2015 ran a genome-wide association study within the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) cohort, designed to find genetic factors influencing cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarker levels, cerebral amyloid deposition, and disease progression. The paper's detailed, genome-wide-significant results were for a different measurement — CSF Abeta1-42 level — where the study identified variants in FRA10AC1 and a second locus at 15q21.
An honest note worth making directly: none of those two headline genes appear among this page's 13 variants. The GWAS Catalog record ties these 13 variants specifically to the paper's cognitive-decline-rate analysis among ADNI participants with late MCI at enrollment — part of the same study's broader disease-progression design, but not the specific finding the paper's own abstract describes in detail. This page exists because the GWAS Catalog record links these variants to this study and trait, not because the paper singles out these particular genes by name the way it does for its CSF biomarker findings.
MCI diagnosis and monitoring of cognitive decline rely on standardized cognitive testing and clinical evaluation, not genotype. None of the variants here is used clinically to diagnose MCI, predict progression to dementia, or guide treatment decisions.
This page's variants come from a specific research cohort (ADNI) studying disease progression in people who already had late MCI. They describe a research association with rate of decline within that group, not a general predictor of who develops MCI or dementia in the first place.
What a 23andMe/AncestryDNA export or raw VCF can and can't tell you about Cognitive Decline Rate in Late MCI comes down to these specific, well-studied positions — not a diagnosis.
RBFOX1 · rs75638798
See detailed info →MYT1L · rs7581969
See detailed info →ADAM29 · rs76744071
See detailed info →EIF4G3 · rs78649275
See detailed info →CADPS · rs79158673
See detailed info →GNAI1 · rs799979
See detailed info →FMO4 · rs116065238
See detailed info →YWHAZ · rs116237496
See detailed info →IFNGR1 · rs117070989
See detailed info →SNHG5 · rs140295727
See detailed info →TSNARE1 · rs145959269
See detailed info →TSNARE1 · rs147368169
See detailed info →ADAM29 · rs183819925
See detailed info →The studies behind these variants recruited participants from different ancestries — a result found in one population doesn't always transfer to another. Based on 13 of 13 linked studies with a resolved discovery ancestry.
Databases, guidelines and references
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Cognitive Decline Rate in Late MCI. MyGeneLog™. https://www.mygenelog.com/conditions/cognitive-decline-mci
MCI is a stage of measurable cognitive decline beyond what is expected for someone's age, but not severe enough to be called dementia. Not everyone with MCI goes on to develop dementia.
Its detailed, genome-wide-significant findings were for CSF Abeta1-42 biomarker level, identifying variants in FRA10AC1 and a 15q21 locus. This page's own 13 variants come from the same study's separate cognitive-decline-rate analysis, which its abstract does not detail gene by gene.
No. It covers a research association with rate of cognitive decline among people who already had late MCI in one study cohort — not a general prediction of who develops MCI or dementia.
No individual variant determines cognitive outcomes. MCI and dementia are diagnosed through standardized cognitive testing and clinical evaluation, not genotype.
Free to reuse. This page's text is original writing from freely-available research, licensed CC BY 4.0 — reuse it, including commercially, with attribution to MyGeneLog™. It's general research-derived information, not medical advice or a diagnosis — see Terms of Use.