African Americans face Alzheimer’s disease at “roughly twice the rate” of White individuals, a disparity researchers link to unequal access to health care, differences in educational quality, biases in cognitive testing, and higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. A new analysis of African American brain tissue offers rare insight into how these inequities intersect with biology.
Scientists examined post‑mortem prefrontal cortex samples from 207 African American donors, including 125 with autopsy‑confirmed Alzheimer’s. They identified numerous genes with altered activity, many never previously tied to the disease. The most striking finding was a “1.5‑fold increase in expression of the ADAMTS2 gene” in tissue from individuals with Alzheimer’s.
Researchers note that most genetic studies have focused on White or mixed‑ancestry populations, often with too few African American participants to detect meaningful patterns. This study marks a shift, revealing what corresponding author Lindsay A. Farrer, PhD, described as the first time that “the most significant finding was the same in both white and African Americans” in similarly designed Alzheimer’s genetics research.
Farrer emphasized that established Alzheimer’s risk variants are often population‑specific or differ in frequency across groups. The shared alteration in ADAMTS2 suggests a biological process common across ancestries, even as social determinants continue to shape who develops the disease and at what rate.
Researchers say the results elevate the priority of further work involving this gene, particularly for communities that bear a disproportionate burden of Alzheimer’s yet remain underrepresented in research.
See: “Largest Study of African American Brain Tissue Unveils Critical Alzheimer’s Gene” (December 15, 2025)
