A new study reveals that learning about one’s risk for Alzheimer’s disease doesn’t cause emotional harm—but even those at high risk often lose motivation to stick with healthy habits over time.
The findings, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, shed light on how people respond emotionally and behaviorally after learning whether they carry signs of early Alzheimer’s disease in their brains.
The research was led by Dr. Orit Lesman-Segev from the Sheba Medical Center in Israel, with contributions from Rutgers Health researcher Dr. Michal Schnaider Beeri and doctoral student Sapir Golan Shekhtman.
Together, the team examined how cognitively healthy adults react after receiving results from brain scans that detect amyloid beta, a protein that builds up in the brain and plays a key role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
The presence of amyloid plaques can be seen through a PET scan, and these plaques can begin forming decades before memory loss or cognitive symptoms appear. The researchers followed 199 healthy adults who underwent PET scans to determine their amyloid status.
Participants completed surveys about their anxiety, depression, memory concerns, and motivation for healthy lifestyle changes before receiving their scan results and again six months later.
The findings surprised the researchers:
Participants without amyloid buildup reported lower levels of anxiety, depression, and memory complaintsafter learning their results. However, their motivation to maintain lifestyle changes—like eating healthier, exercising, or staying mentally active—declined after six months.
Participants with amyloid buildup (indicating higher risk for Alzheimer’s) did not experience emotional distress. In fact, they reported reduced anxiety after learning their results. But like the others, they also showed a drop in motivation to continue healthy lifestyle behaviors over time.
“This is an important message,” said Dr. Schnaider Beeri. “People didn’t become depressed or anxious after learning they had early signs of Alzheimer’s risk. In fact, they felt better emotionally—regardless of their scan results.”
However, the results also highlight a challenge: even people who learn they are at risk often struggle to maintain motivation to keep up brain-healthy behaviors.
According to Shekhtman, this fading motivation is a major concern. “Our study shows how easily motivation for healthy habits can decline—even in people with medical evidence of increased Alzheimer’s risk,” she said. “We need better strategies to help people stay on track.”
Dr. Lesman-Segev emphasized that these findings are especially relevant now, as medicine moves toward preventive Alzheimer’s treatments. In the future, people may be routinely screened for Alzheimer’s-related brain changes—even before symptoms appear—in order to qualify for new therapies.
That means doctors and researchers need to better understand how people emotionally and behaviorally respond to learning this kind of information.
As the study demonstrates, simply knowing one’s risk doesn’t lead to emotional harm—but it also isn’t enough to guarantee long-term lifestyle changes.
The researchers suggest that future efforts should focus not only on disclosing medical risk information in a supportive way, but also on creating tools, programs, or follow-up support that help people stay motivated to protect their brain health for the long haul.
If you care about brain health, please read studies about vitamin D deficiency linked to Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, and higher magnesium intake could help benefit brain health.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies about antioxidants that could help reduce dementia risk, and coconut oil could help improve cognitive function in Alzheimer’s.
The research findings can be found in Alzheimer’s & Dementia.
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