Neighborhood conditions appear to shape dementia-related brain biology.
Where a person lives may play a significant role in their brain health and risk of developing dementia, according to new research from Wake Forest University School of Medicine.
The findings, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Behavior & Socioeconomics of Aging (a journal of the Alzheimer’s Association), revealed that people residing in neighborhoods marked by greater social vulnerability, environmental inequality, and economic disadvantage displayed measurable differences in brain structure and function.
“This study is consistent with other research showing that the state of the social environment in which people live can shape their brain health in profound ways,” said Timothy Hughes, Ph.D., associate professor of gerontology and geriatric medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and senior author.
To conduct the study, researchers examined data from 679 adults taking part in the Healthy Brain Study at the Wake Forest Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. Each participant received brain scans and blood tests to identify early indicators of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. The research team then compared these findings with three national tools that evaluate neighborhood conditions by ZIP code: the Area Deprivation Index, the Social Vulnerability Index, and the Environmental Justice Index.
Key Findings
Higher scores on these indices, reflecting greater neighborhood burden of the social determinants of health, were linked to changes in dementia-related biomarkers, especially among Black participants whose neighborhoods experienced the most burden of the social determinants. These dementia-related biomarkers included a thinner outer layer of the brain, white matter changes representing vascular disease, reduced blood flow, and more uneven circulation, all of which may contribute to memory and cognitive decline over time.
“This study is one of the first to connect a variety of place-based social factors with advanced biological markers of dementia,” said Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, a sixth-year M.D.-Ph.D. candidate and lead author. “It shows that the conditions and environment in which people live — such as access to clean air, safe housing, nutritious food, and economic opportunity — may leave a lasting imprint on brain health.”
The study contributes to a growing body of evidence that social and environmental factors are not just background influences but central to understanding and addressing Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
Policy and Public Health Implications
Krishnamurthy emphasized the policy relevance of the findings.
“If we truly want to improve brain health across all communities, we must look beyond individual choices and hone in on the broader systems and structures that shape health at the neighborhood level.”
Reference: “Associations of place-based social determinants of health with biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias” by Sudarshan Krishnamurthy, Lingyi Lu, Marc D. Rudolph, Melissa Rundle, Courtney Sutphen, Thomas C. Register, Xiaoyan I. Leng, Sarah A. Gaussoin, Megan Lipford, Da Ma, Allison Caban-Holt, Goldie S. Byrd, Laura D. Baker, Samuel N. Lockhart, Suzanne Craft, James R. Bateman and Timothy M. Hughes, 15 October 2025, Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Behavior & Socioeconomics of Aging.
DOI: 10.1002/bsa3.70030
This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health grants F30 AG085932 and P30 AG07294; and the American Heart Association grant 24PRE1200264.
Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.
Follow us on Google and Google News.
1 Comment
This is correlational and not causational. The researchers did not show these ZIP code locations giving a healthy person brain problems, or that taking a person away from a bad ZIP code will improve their brains. Perhaps people who live in those areas and fail to leave them are inherently of less brain power than other people who left those areas. Difficult to make any sense out of this study, apart from its environmental justice agenda.