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‹ Sun · 26 Jul 2026
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Theoretical and practical challenges for capturing reserve and resilience in aging and Alzheimer's disease: A narrative review.

Clarifying how we measure brain reserve and resilience in aging research strengthens our ability to test prevention strategies.

This narrative review in Alzheimer's & Dementia provides a comprehensive critique of how brain reserve, cognitive reserve, and resilience are conceptualized and measured in aging and AD research, identifying fundamental inconsistencies that limit reproducibility and causal inference. The authors propose greater methodological harmonization, improved proxy validation, and lifespan longitudinal approaches to strengthen the translational relevance of reserve and resilience research for preventive strategies.

What the study was

Study design
Narrative review
Population
Adults across the aging spectrum from normal aging to Alzheimer's disease
Category
Other
Maturity
Exploratory
Journal
Alzheimer's & Dementia

Why it surfaced

High-impact journal (Alzheimer's & Dementia) narrative review on fundamental methodological challenges in aging/AD reserve research; multi-institutional international authorship.

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