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Abstract
Although there is a vast literature linking education and later health outcomes, the
mechanisms underlying these associations are relatively unknown. In the spirit of
some medical literature that leverages developmental abnormalities to understand mechanisms
of normative functioning, we explore the ability of higher educational attainments
to "rescue" biological/genetic liabilities in brain function through inheritance of
a variant of the APOE gene shown to lead to cognitive decline, dementia, and Alzheimer's
disease in old age. Deploying a between-sibling design that allows quasi-experimental
variation in genotype and educational attainment within a standard gene-environment
interaction framework, we show evidence that the genetic effects of the "risky" APOE
variant on old-age cognitive decline are absent in individuals who complete college
(vs. high school graduates). Auxiliary analyses suggest that the likely mechanisms
of education are most consistent through changing brain processes (i.e., "how we think")
and potentially building cognitive reserves, rather than alleviating old age cognitive
decline through the channels of higher socioeconomic status and resources over the
life course.