A history of cigarette smoking is associated with faster functional decline and reduction of entorhinal cortex volume in mild cognitive impairment

Little is known about the longitudinal association of cigarette smoking with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) related markers in subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In this study, we aimed to examine the effect of a history of cigarette smoking on change in global cognition, verbal memory, functional performance, hippocampal volume, entorhinal cortex volume, brain glucose metabolism, and CSF AD pathologies over time in MCI subjects. At baseline, there were 870 subjects with MCI, including 618 non-smokers (no history of smoking) and 252 smokers (any lifetime history of smoking). Linear mixed models were fitted for each outcome with adjustment of several covariates. The major findings were: (1) Among older people with MCI, smokers showed faster decline in functional performance compared to non-smokers; (2) Smokers demonstrated steeper decline in entorhinal cortex volume than non-smokers; (3) A history of cigarette smoking was not associated with change in CSF Aβ42, t-tau or p-tau levels over time in MCI subjects. In conclusion, we found that a history of cigarette smoking was associated with faster decline in functional performance and entorhinal cortex volume over time at the prodromal stage of dementia.