A new study suggests that having a father with Alzheimer’s disease may be linked to more severe changes in the brain than having a mother with the disease. These changes include the spread and buildup of tau protein, a key marker of Alzheimer’s.
The findings were published online on April 9, 2025, in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Researchers also found that women may be more likely than men to have a heavier buildup of this harmful tau protein. Tau buildup in the brain is known to be one of the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
“We were surprised to see a stronger connection with a father’s history of Alzheimer’s,” said study author Dr. Sylvia Villeneuve of McGill University in Montreal. “We expected to see more brain changes in people with affected mothers.”
The study included 243 people, all of whom had a family history of Alzheimer’s disease. These participants were, on average, 68 years old and had no memory or thinking problems at the start of the study. Family history included having one or both parents or at least two siblings with Alzheimer’s.
At the start of the study and over time, participants had brain scans and completed tests of memory and thinking. They were followed for nearly seven years. During that period, 71 people developed mild cognitive impairment, which is often an early stage of Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers found that people with a father who had Alzheimer’s had more tau protein spreading throughout the brain. This was also true for women in the study, who not only had greater tau spread but also more buildup overall.
Dr. Villeneuve said this new understanding could help doctors design more personalized approaches to reduce Alzheimer’s risk. “Knowing that certain people may be more vulnerable based on their family history and sex could help us offer better prevention and support,” she said.
It’s important to note that the study only shows an association—it does not prove that a father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis causes these brain changes. The study also had a limitation in that most participants were white, meaning the findings may not apply to other racial or ethnic groups.
The study was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Quebec Research Fund – Health, the J.-Louis Lévesque Foundation, the Brain Canada Foundation, Alzheimer’s Society Canada, and Brain Canada Research.
If you care about Alzheimer’s, please read studies about the likely cause of Alzheimer’s disease , and new non-drug treatment that could help prevent Alzheimer’s.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies about diet that may help prevent Alzheimer’s, and results showing some dementia cases could be prevented by changing these 12 things.
The study findings are published in Neurology.
Copyright © 2025 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
