A national study of 1,187 children — including 256 kids from Hawaii — who carry variations of the gene linked to Alzheimer’s disease showed altered brain development at a young age, according to a University of Hawaii neurologist who led the study.

Children under the age of 10 who carry the gene had “slightly delayed brain development and cognitive function,” said author Dr. Linda Chang of UH’s John A. Burns School of Medicine, who is also a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology. “These findings indicate that these genes not only can influence the development of Alzheimer’s disease later in life, but can also affect early brain development.”

However, Chang said “it’s important to emphasize that the older children with these genotypes showed normal brain structure and function.”

Results of the study were released Wednesday. Conducted between 2010 and 2012, the study looked at people ages 3 to 20 who carry the epsilon 4 variant of the apolipoprotein-E gene in nine communities across the country.

Those people are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than people with the other two variants of the gene, according to the study.

There has been ongoing research on the relationship between apolipoprotein-E and Alzheimer’s. The study led by Chang looked at the effects of the genotype on brain structure and function in typically developing children.

“Studying these genes in young children may ultimately give us early indications of who may be at risk for dementia in the future and possibly even help us develop ways to prevent the disease from occurring, or to delay the start of the disease,” Chang said. “Younger children with the genotypes that are more common in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease had slower brain development in brain regions often affected in patients with Alzheimer’s.”

Researchers from UCLA, USC, UC-San Diego, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Yale, Cornell and the University of Massachusetts all studied children in their communities. But the plurality of children who were studied were in Hawaii, Chang said.

“Hawaii was the site that collected 20 percent of the data,” she said, adding that the genetics work was performed at Scripps Research Institute in San Diego.

Chang does not encourage parents to have their children tested to see whether they carry the variant.

“We should not be checking for these genotypes in any children until we have established methods to improve their brain function or to prevent the development of Alzheimer’s disease later in life,” she said. “Studies such as this one provide a better understanding on how these genes might influence brain development and later brain aging.”

In the future, Chang said, “The findings of this study might provide early indications of who might benefit from preventive measures when they become available.”

The study appeared in Wednesday’s online issue of the Minneapolis-based Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, the world’s largest neurology organization.