Driscoll I, et al. - Researchers investigated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in candidate genes associated with either cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathogenesis. Further, they determined the association of these SNPs with probable dementia (PD) in the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study (WHIMS). Across five genes (APOE/TOMM40, BDNF, COMT, SORL1, and KIBRA), 96 SNPs were analyzed in 2,857 women (aged ≥ 65 years) from the WHIMS randomized trials of hormone therapy via custom Illumina GoldenGate assay. A full 19% of the sample were MCI (N=165) or PD (N=387), and the remaining 81% were free of cognitive impairment. Results supported that the APOE/TOMM40 genes confer dementia risk and extend these findings to COMT, BDNF and KIBRA. These findings may assist in better understanding the role of these genes in cognition and cognitive impairment.