Emotion regulation in mild cognitive impairment and subjective cognitive decline

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundOur previous research in emotional verbal memory in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and work from others suggest the hypothesis that emotion dysregulation is a signature of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) risk. Whether subjective cognitive decline (SCD), conceptualized as a possible preclinical stage of AD, is associated with emotion dysregulation is unknown. In the current study, we compared responses on the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) and behavioural responses on a threat task amongst SCD, MCI, and cognitively unimpaired (CU) older adults.MethodsThe sample included 146 older adults free of lifetime history of psychiatric illness/neurological conditions: 33 MCI [17F, age 72.3(SD7.6)] defined as subjective memory/other cognitive complaints, impaired neuropsychological (NP) test performance, and functional independence, 71 SCD [49F, age 71.1(SD6.3)] based on subjective memory decline with worry with normal NP performance, and 42 CU [27F, age 70.6(SD6.8)] based on absence of subjective memory decline and normal NP test scores. Participants completed the CERQ which assesses cognitive coping strategies in negative emotional situations. A subset (19 MCI, 43 SCD, 19 CU) completed a computerized task in which they rated a physical feature or threat level of faces with varying degrees of threat. Multivariate ANOVA was used to examine group differences, followed by Sidak‐adjusted post hoc comparisons.ResultsOn the CERQ, groups differed in use of catastrophizing [F(2, 142)=3.51, P=.032], with a trend for use of rumination (P=.07), attributable to greater use of both strategies in MCI compared to CU (P=.04). On the threat task, groups differed in response latencies to judging physical features of threatening faces relative to neutral [F(2, 78)=3.17, P=.048)]. Relative to CU, SCD participants were slower to make physical judgements of threatening faces compared to neutral (P=.026).ConclusionsOlder adults with SCD do not report greater use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies compared to CU. However, alterations in behavioural responses to threat versus neutral in SCD may represent deficits in regulating attention towards negative emotional information, similar to mood‐congruent cognitive biases observed in depression. These preliminary data highlight the need to increase our understanding of explicit and implicit emotional processing in older adults at risk for AD.