SuperAgers are adults 80 and older whose episodic memory matches that of middle-aged adults — a rare and coveted cognitive phenotype. Researchers tested whether these individuals simply inherited less Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk by examining APOE genotype and three modern polygenic risk scores in 231 participants. Neither APOE status nor any polygenic score distinguished SuperAgers from cognitively average peers. Results held across multiple ancestries. The findings are striking: exceptional late-life memory is not just the absence of genetic vulnerability to AD. This redirects the search for what makes SuperAgers special toward rare genetic variants, environmental exposures, lifestyle habits, and other experiential factors that standard genome-wide studies have not yet captured.
