Gum disease appears to disrupt brain activity, potentially increasing a person’s risk of cognitive decline.
“These differences suggest that periodontitis may negatively affect brain function even in normal cognition,” concluded the research team led by Xaiohu Li, an associate professor of radiology with the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University in Hefei, China.
Further, the results indicate that “periodontitis might be a potential risk factor for brain damage and provides a theoretical clue and a new treatment target for the earlyand brain activity of 51 people, including 11 with healthy gums, 14 with mild gum disease, and 26 with moderate-to-severe gum disease.
The people with moderate-to-severe gum disease displayed changes in connections between and within different brain regions, researchers said.“To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to compare brain function changes in elderly individuals with normal cognition with different severity levels of periodontitis from the perspective of brain networks,” researchers wrote.Bacteria from diseased gums can invade brain tissues, promoting an immune response, researchers said.
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