Overall, dementia-associated genes with altered expression in the young-old (Table 2) were predominantly represented by the signaling, but not by the metabolic, pathways typically associated with synaptic function, such as GABA and glutamate receptor signaling, synaptic long term potentiation (LTP), and pathways associated with neural development, including neuregulin, IGF1, VEGF, PDGF, PI3K/Akt, axonal guidance and calcium signaling. Here, VEGFA is linked to dementia.