The first aim of this study was to explore the relation between cognitive reserve, age, and neuropsychological functioning in a healthy sample; and second, to determine the risk of showing cognitive deficits as a function of cognitive reserve. One hundred forty-six healthy participants between the ages of 20 and 79 were submitted to neuropsychological assessment, focusing on attention, memory, visuo-construction, conceptualization and reasoning. Premorbid IQ as measured with the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Vocabulary subtest was used as a proxy of cognitive reserve. Multivariate regression analysis with age and premorbid IQ as explanatory factors revealed a significant effect in all neuropsychological tests. Logistic regression revealed that participants with low cognitive reserve were more likely to obtain deficient scores (< or =1.5 SD below the mean) in the cognitive domains of attention (odds ratio [OR], 3.13; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.059.29), memory (OR, 6.17; 95% CI, 1.69-22.61) and global functioning (OR, 6.44; 95% CI, 2.56-16.22) than participants with high cognitive reserve. Results suggest that cognitive reserve acts as a protective factor against the expression of cognitive decline related to age in healthy individuals.

Early neuropsychological impairments in PD are most evident in individuals with lower RC. As has been found in other neurological disorders, individuals with greater RC may be less sensitive to the initial clinical effects of the underlying neuropathological process.

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Family history of alcoholism and antisocial behaviour had both independent and synergic negative relationships with abstract verbal reasoning for a group of 42 female polydrug abusers whose main drug was heroin. This finding suggests that the observed lower cognitive performance may reflect the family history of alcoholism or antisocial behaviour rather than just drug abuse and is consistent with theories predicting a relative deficiency in high language skill by persons with antisocial personality disorders.

We investigated the family history of alcoholism as a potential contributor to cognitive dysfunction in polydrug abusers. A sample of 62 male polydrug users whose main drug of use was heroin included no one with which comorbid antisocial behavior varied by family history of alcoholism. They were compared on a battery of cognitive tests. Polydrug users with positive histories tended to perform worse on several cognitive measures than those with negative family histories, but these tendencies were not statistically significant. The current findings support the hypothesis that cognitive deficiencies observed in previous studies of persons with positive family histories of alcoholism may, in part, be attributable to a failure to exclude individuals with diagnoses of antisocial behavior.