A new study found that certain cognitive abilities during adolescence may be associated with a lower risk of developing dementia later in life.
The study analyzed data from 10,539 Swedish participants born in 1948. In 1961, the participants underwent tests measuring inductive reasoning, verbal abilities, and spatial abilities.
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Inductive reasoning measures a person’s ability to identify patterns and draw rules from information. The tests included tasks such as completing number sequences, identifying patterns, and selecting items that did not belong to a particular group.
Researchers followed the participants until November 2025. During that period, 287 people developed dementia, representing 2.7% of the study group. They found that participants who scored higher on inductive reasoning tests at age 13 had a 16% lower risk of developing dementia.
The results also showed that each additional point on the inductive reasoning test was associated with a 2% lower risk of dementia. However, tests measuring verbal and spatial abilities did not show a similar association.
The researchers accounted for other factors that could affect dementia risk, including the participants’ and their parents’ education levels, as well as certain chronic diseases. They also repeated the analysis using another group of around 20,000 people born in 1953 and found a similar association, with those who scored higher in inductive reasoning showing a 15% lower risk of dementia.
One possible explanation proposed by the researchers involves the brain’s frontoparietal network, which plays a role in working memory, planning, and decision-making. Declining performance in this network has been associated with cognitive decline.
The researchers also discussed the concept of “system integrity,” which suggests that people with stronger cognitive functioning earlier in life may also have better overall health across several biological systems, including the brain, heart, and metabolic processes.
However, the study does not prove that stronger inductive reasoning skills during adolescence prevent dementia. It only identified an association between the two. The study also did not include some factors that may affect dementia risk, such as genetics, prenatal health, and lifestyle during adulthood.
The researchers said further studies are needed to understand the reasons behind this association and determine whether cognitive abilities developed during childhood and adolescence may play a role in maintaining brain health and reducing dementia risk later in life.
Resource: Al-Ghad.
