The main finding of this study was that in addition to previously described, well known risk factors for cognitive decline in older age, such as ApoE4 risk alleles (Livingston et al. 2020), a lack of cognitive reserve (Chen et al. 2022), and dysosmia (Fatuzzo et al. 2023) indicating the validity of our study ́s results, both latency prolongation of the VSEP and a change in functional brain activation during a visual-spatial task also predicted the development of cognitive impairment. The gene discussed is APOE; the disease is Mental deterioration.