Associations Between Age, Hippocampal Volume, and Spatial Working Memory in Periadolescent Children: Preliminary Findings from the PRANK Study

During childhood development, particularly the periadolescent epoch, significant changes in cognition and brain structure are known to occur. The development of spatial working memory (SWM), for example, continues throughout the teenage years. The hippocampus is necessary for normal SWM, as seen by the substantial memory deficits seen in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and their associated hippocampal pathology. It is hypothesized that vulnerability to AD could be modulated by early brain development, so understanding the developmental relationship between hippocampal volume (HV) and SWM would provide a key baseline for comparison of different trajectories. Our ongoing study, Polygenetic Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease in Nebraska Kids (PRANK; R01 AG064247), measures brain structure/function, cognitive abilities, and Alzheimer’s polygenetic risk score in periadolescent children (age 8‐13). Here, we report preliminary data from PRANK measuring the association between HV, age, and SWM.