Patterns Of Cognitive Aging Research Articles

Social support moderates association between area deprivation index and changes in physical health among adults in the Baltimore Study of Black Aging (BSBA)

ABSTRACT Despite the association of neighborhood quality with poorer adult health, limited research has explored the association between neighborhood disadvantage, e.g. Area Deprivation Index (ADI), and older Black adults’ health, prospectively. This observational study examined the association between ADI and changes in longitudinal physical health within older Black adults. The analytic sample (n = 317) included data from waves 1 & 2 of the Baltimore Study of Black Aging: Patterns of Cognitive Aging (BSBA-PCA). Study variables included the Area Deprivation Index (ADI), objective (e.g. average heart rate) and subjective (e.g. activities of daily living) measures of physical health. Multiple linear regression models were conducted controlling for sociodemographic and social support characteristics. Participants living in more disadvantaged neighborhoods, based on national and state ADIs, were more likely to have a decreasing heart rate even after adjusting for covariates. Likewise, participants reporting increasing levels of ADL difficulty were living in a neighborhood with greater disadvantage based on national and state ADI rankings. Significant social support received and ADI (national and state) interactions were observed for average heart rate. The findings suggest that research on the effect of neighborhood quality and social support can enhance our understanding of its impact on older Black adults’ health prospectively.

The effect of blood pressure on domain‐specific cognitive changes in older Black Americans: findings from the Baltimore Study of Aging – Patterns of Cognitive Aging

AbstractBackgroundPrevious research suggests that hypertension shape cognitive health outcomes in older Blacks (Whitfield 2008). However, few studies have explored the relation between objective and subjective blood pressure (BP) measures and cognitive decline. This study examined whether systolic, diastolic, and self‐reported BP were associated with changes in cognition.MethodData are drawn from the Baltimore Study of Black Aging—Patterns of Cognitive Aging. At baseline, 602 Black participants (48‐95 years) were enrolled. At follow‐up, approximately 3 years later, 450 participants were re‐interviewed. Cognition included 5 domains: working memory, processing speed, verbal memory, vocabulary, and inductive reasoning. Using an oscillometer automated device (A&D model UA‐ 767), three readings of orthostatic BP were collected and mean systolic (SBP; range = 82‐230.3 mmHg) and diastolic BP (DBP; range = 51‐136.7 mmHg) values were calculated for each participant. BP was treated as a continuous variable. Participants were also asked “Have you ever been told by a doctor or nurse that you have high blood pressure? (yes/no response)” Data were analyzed using multiple linear regression, controlling for sociodemographic and health conditions.ResultMajority of the sample was female (25.4% male) and had at least a high school education (57.1%). Systolic BP was inversely associated with inductive reasoning at follow‐up (b = ‐0.208, p = 0.023; see Table 1), but was not related to any other cognitive domains, after adjusting for age, sex, education, depressive symptoms, comorbidities, diastolic BP, and baseline cognition. Diastolic BP and self‐reported hypertensive status were both unrelated to changes in each of the five cognitive domains (all models, p> 0.05).ConclusionThe present study adds to our understanding of cognitive aging among older Black Americans. Results support previous research, pointing to an independent effect of BP on domain‐specific cognitive changes (Buford 2016), but also extend the literature by highlighting a more pronounced negative effect of systolic BP. These findings suggest that the pathway to cognitive dysfunction is contributed to by BP. Several key mechanisms – including increased risk for stroke and “vascular dementia” (age‐ and hypertension‐related cerebral vasculature changes) – may explain the influence of hypertension on cognitive decline that warrant further study in Black Americans.

Differential Associations Between the Area Deprivation Index and Measures of Physical Health for Older Black Adults.

This study explored the association between place-based characteristics (e.g., neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation) and physical health within older Black adults, a critical gap in the literature as identified by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. The sample was from Wave 1 data of Baltimore Study of Black Aging: Patterns of Cognitive Aging (N = 450; Mage = 68.34). Variables included the area deprivation index (ADI), objective (e.g., average blood pressure) and subjective (e.g., self-rated health) measures of physical health. Multiple linear regression models were conducted controlling for key sociodemographic characteristics. Participants reporting better self-rated health and less likely to need help with activities of daily living were significantly more likely to be living in more disadvantaged neighborhoods based on national and state ADI, respectively, even after adjusting for covariates. A significant age and ADI interaction revealed better self-rated health was associated with a more disadvantaged neighborhood particularly for individuals ≤66 years. There was no significant association between ADI and objective physical health measures. The findings suggest that national- and state-level place-based characteristics should be considered along with individual-level factors, which can enrich the scientific understanding of how neighborhood characteristics relate to varying health indicators among older Black adults.

The Interactive Effects of Education and Social Support on Blood Pressure in African Americans

This study examined whether the effects of received and provided social support on blood pressure (BP) would differ by education. Data from 602 African American adults (48-95 years) enrolled in the Baltimore Study of Black Aging—Patterns of Cognitive Aging were analyzed using multiple linear regression. We found no main effects of received and provided social support on BP. However, a significant moderation effect was observed for systolic BP, such that greater received social support was positively associated with higher systolic BP among individuals with low levels of education, adjusting for age, sex, chronic health conditions, and depressive symptoms. The findings demonstrate that social support and education have joint effects on blood pressure, which highlights the importance of considering psychosocial determinants of adverse cardiovascular health outcomes that disproportionately affect African Americans.

Sex differences in cognitive aging: a 4-year longitudinal study in marmosets

Longitudinal studies are essential to understand healthy and pathological neurocognitive aging such as Alzheimer's Disease, but longitudinal designs are rare in both humans and non-human primate models of aging because of the difficulty of tracking cognitive change in long-lived primates. Common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) are uniquely suited for aging studies due to their naturally short lifespan (10–12 years), sophisticated cognitive and social abilities and Alzheimer Disease-like neuropathology. We report the first longitudinal study of cognitive aging in marmosets (N = 28) as they transitioned from middle- (∼5 years) to old age (∼9 years). We characterized aging trajectories using reversal learning with different stimuli each year. Marmosets initially improved on cognitive performance due to practice, but worsened in the final year, suggesting the onset of age-related decline. Cognitive impairment emerged earlier in females than males and was more prominent for discrimination than for reversal learning. Sex differences in cognitive aging could not be explained by differences in motivation or motor abilities, which improved or remained stable across aging. Likewise, males and females did not differ in aging trajectories of overall behavior or reactivity to a social stressor, with the exception of a progressive decline in the initiation of social behavior in females. Patterns of cognitive aging were highly variable across marmosets of both sexes, suggesting the potential for pathological aging for some individuals. Future work will link individual cognitive trajectories to neuropathology in order to better understand the relationships between neuropathologic burden and vulnerability to age-related cognitive decline in each sex.

Using Mixture Modeling to Construct Subgroups of Cognitive Aging in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study.

Longitudinal surveys of older adults increasingly incorporate assessments of cognitive performance. However, very few studies have used mixture modeling techniques to describe cognitive aging, identifying subgroups of people who display similar patterns of performance across discrete cognitive functions. We employ this approach to advance empirical evidence concerning interindividual variability and intraindividual change in patterns of cognitive aging. We drew upon data from 3,713 participants in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS). We used latent class analysis to generate subgroups of cognitive aging based on assessments of verbal fluency and episodic memory at ages 65 and 72. We also employed latent transition analysis to identify how individual participants moved between subgroups over the 7-year period. There were 4 subgroups at each point in time. Approximately 3 quarters of the sample demonstrated continuity in the qualitative type of profile between ages 65 and 72, with 17.9% of the sample in a profile with sustained overall low performance at both ages 65 and 72. An additional 18.7% of participants made subgroup transitions indicating marked decline in episodic memory. Results demonstrate the utility of using mixture modeling to identify qualitatively and quantitatively distinct subgroups of cognitive aging among older adults. We discuss the implications of these results for the continued use of population health data to advance research on cognitive aging.

Patterns of multi-domain cognitive aging in participants of the Long Life Family Study.

Maintaining good cognitive function at older age is important, but our knowledge of patterns and predictors of cognitive aging is still limited. We used Bayesian model-based clustering to group 5064 participants of the Long Life Family Study (ages 49-110years) into clusters characterized by distinct trajectories of cognitive change in the domains of episodic memory, attention, processing speed, and verbal fluency. For each domain, we identified 4 or 5 large clusters with representative patterns of change ranging from rapid decline to exceptionally slow change. We annotated the clusters by their correlation with genetic and molecular biomarkers, non-genetic risk factors, medical history, and other markers of aging to discover correlates of cognitive changes and neuroprotection. The annotation analysis discovered both predictors of multi-domain cognitive change such as gait speed and predictors of domain-specific cognitive change such as IL6 and NTproBNP that correlate only with change of processing speed or APOE genotypes that correlate only with change of processing speed and logical memory. These patterns also suggest that cognitive decline starts at young age and that maintaining good physical function correlates with slower cognitive decline. To better understand the agreement of cognitive changes across multiple domains, we summarized the results of the cluster analysis into a score of cognitive function change. This score showed that extreme patterns of change affecting multiple cognitive domains simultaneously are rare in this study and that specific signatures of biomarkers of inflammation and metabolic disease predict severity of cognitive changes. The substantial heterogeneity of change patterns within and between cognitive domains and the net of correlations between patterns of cognitive aging and other aging traits emphasizes the importance of measuring a wide range of cognitive functions and the need for studying cognitive aging in concert with other aging traits.

Education Desegregation and Cognitive Change in African American Older Adults.

The present study examined the relationship between desegregated schooling and cognitive change in a sample of 420 community-dwelling African American elders (mean age = 68.6; SD = 9.1). Participants were recruited for the Baltimore Study of Black Aging - Patterns of Cognitive Aging. Cognitive measures from six domains of function were administered at baseline and follow-up 33 months later. Repeated measures multivariate analysis of covariance was conducted; the between subjects factors were schooling type and age cohort, and the within subjects factor was time. Analyses controlled for age, years of education, and sex, and follow-up univariate analyses were used to determine which individual cognitive scores drove the multivariate effects. There were significant multivariate within-group, between-group, and interaction effects (p < .05). Univariate analyses indicated that the desegregated schooling group scored significantly better on Language and Perceptual Speed (p < .01), and the youngest age cohort (50- to 59-year-olds) performed better on measures of Perceptual Speed. There were no significant univariate interactions between schooling group or age cohort and cognitive change over time. Overall, these findings suggest a slight advantage of desegregated schooling for cognitive performance, but no advantage of desegregated schooling on the rate of cognitive change over time in this sample.

From cell to cognition: can changes in telomere length indicate patterns of cognitive aging?

The review by Zhu et al. [1] appearing in Clinical Science earlier this year is one of several excellent recent review papers on telomeres and aging that, taken together, point to the importance of bridging the gap between research on cellular and cognitive aging. Researchers who study trends in aging across societies have shown that some factors can affect longevity. For instance, Fraser and Shavlik [2] have shown that optimal choices regarding diet, physical exercise, cigarette smoking, body weight and hormone replacement therapy in women had a significant influence on longevity in Californian Adventists. They followed up 34192 California Adventists from 1976 to 1988 and found higher life expectancy in this group compared with other white Californians by 7.28 years in men and 4.42 years in women. Other large cohort studies conducted in different countries have also reported that life expectancy can be extended by up to 18 years when associated, for instance, with physical exercise and refraining from smoking [3]. These clearly substantial gains in life expectancy are probably worthwhile only if the extended life span also matches the brain span. This is becoming a prominent issue as the population worldwide rapidly ages.The issue of how to study the impact of biological age on non-pathological cognitive aging is tightly related to the question of when cognitive decline begins. Theories on cognitive decline typically assume that deterioration occurs at older age. However, not all researchers agree with this assumption, presenting evidence that indicates that declines in speed processing, reasoning, memory, executive function, language and so on actually begin in our 20s and 30s (for example, see [4]). Although cognitive decline is part of normal aging, individual differences in how we age may reveal how genetics, general health, diet, lifestyle and other factors affect cognitive aging.When it comes to the role of biological age in cognitive aging, one particularly interesting question is whether telomere shortening is a marker for cognitive aging. Telomeres and their associated proteins have in particular been linked with cancer, cardiovascular disease and neurodegenerative diseases, but apart from a broad conclusion that telomere shortening is a marker of cellular aging and its association with the risk of Alzheimer's disease, chronic stress exposure and depression, little is known about how exactly changes in telomere length affect cognition and emotion in the course of aging. Studies that have been conducted on this topic so far typically report that telomere shortening is a distal correlate of cognitive decline [5]. However, some researchers have reported different findings, indicating that telomere length is not a reliable predictor of decline or mortality (for example, see [6]). These controversial findings on the impact of telomere length on cognitive aging clearly indicate a need for studying this issue in more detail. For instance, one could investigate whether different patterns of cognitive aging are associated with different patterns of telomere shortening. Ideally, examining the relationship between telomere length and cognition should be based on measuring telomeres in neural tissue. Although telomere length in leucocytes may act as a surrogate marker for telomere length in other tissues, it may not be applicable to all cell types. However, Takubo et al. [7] measured telomere lengths in five organs (cerebral cortex, myocardium, liver, renal cortex and spleen) in a large number of autopsy cases and found “a robust correlation of telomere length among these organs in any given individual”. Their data also suggest a specific telomere length in each person. Given these findings, it seems appropriate to investigate the relationship between the peripheral blood leucocyte telomere length and cognitive functions.If the hypothesis on the impact of telomere shortening on cognitive performance holds, we can expect to find different patterns of non-pathological cognitive decline associated with differences in telomere shortening. Finding out exactly what types of telomere length–cognitive decline patterns exist across different age groups would represent an important step in bridging the gap between the research on cellular and cognitive aging.

P4-066: What goes up, must come down: Compensatory neural activity among the very old

Background: Understanding factors that contribute to successful cognitive aging has become increasingly important as a growing portion of the population lives to very old age. Our research has focused on different patterns of cognitive aging by using electrophysiologic and behavioral measures. Previously, we demonstrated (e.g., NeuroImage, 2008; 39(1)) that cognitively high-functioning younger-old (y-old) (65-79 y.o.) subjects allocate more neural resources, as measured by the P3 event-related potential, than cognitively high-functioning middle-aged and young subjects and than cognitively average-functioning y-old subjects. Interestingly, although cognitively average-functioning middle-aged subjects appropriate more resources to novel stimuli than cognitively-matched young subjects, cognitively average-functioning y-old subjects exhibit a substantial reduction in novelty P3 amplitude. These findings suggest that age-related compensatory activity may involve increased allocation of capacity-limited controlled resources that persists until capacity limits are exceeded. For cognitively average-functioning adults this may occur by y-old age. We hypothesized that in cognitively high functioning adults this would develop in old-old (o-old) age. Here we have extended our investigations to include o-old individuals (’80 y.o.), and report on preliminary results. Objective: To determine whether cognitively high functioning o-old adults continue to exhibit compensatory neural activity and a preference for attending to novelty. Methods: Electrophysiologic and behavioral responses to standard, target, and novel visual stimuli were recorded while young, middleaged, y-old, and o-old individuals performed a subject-controlled variant of the novelty oddball task. Results: Cognitively high-functioning o-old adults exhibited a large reduction in their novelty P3, but not until their mid to late 80s. Behaviorally, cognitively high-functioning individuals in their 90s continued to spend more time exploring novel than repetitive standard visual stimuli. Conclusions: Our research suggests that age-related compensatory neural activity may not be limited to high-functioning older individuals with substantial cognitive reserve, but also be observed among cognitively average-functioning adults at an earlier stage of the lifespan. Cognitively high-functioning adults appear to have the capacity to appropriate compensatory neural resources at least through their early 80s, and continue to be attracted to novelty, a hallmark of healthy human behavior, at least through their early 90s.

Aging affects executive functions and memory in mouse lemur primates

The decline of cognitive capacities with age in mouse lemur primates ( Microcebus murinus) was assessed. Eight young adults (2–4 years) and nine aged adults (7–11 years) were examined on tasks designed to measure executive functions, procedural and declarative memory. The mouse lemurs were tested on the go-no go successive discrimination task, set shifting tasks (including extra-dimensional shift and reversal discrimination) and a spatial rule-guided discrimination task. There were four major findings. First, the deficits observed were not global but only on specific tasks indicating that only specific cognitive abilities are impaired with aging. Second, there were variations among aged subjects suggesting different patterns of cognitive aging. Third, alterations in cognitive abilities with aging in mouse lemurs seemed to be comparable to those described in aged monkeys and humans. Indeed, executive functions and declarative memory were affected in subpopulations of aged subjects whereas procedural memory remained intact in all the tested aged subjects. Finally, two forms of executive dysfunctions were distinguished among the aged subjects. The ultimate goal is to correlate age-related cognitive deficit with brain alterations and this study has helped to select candidate regions to be thoroughly scrutinized in aged mouse lemurs.

Surprising Lack of Sex Differences in Normal Cognitive Aging in Twins

Sex differences in the etiology of normal cognitive functioning in aging remain largely unexplored. We conducted an investigation of genetic and environmental contributions to sex differences in level of cognitive performance and rate of decline in the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging (SATSA) (Finkel & Pedersen, 2004) data set. Behavioral genetic parameterizations of a latent growth curve model were fit to longitudinal data on 11 cognitive measures. Seven hundred and ninety-eight non-demented individuals had cognitive data across four waves of measurement covering 13 years. Participants ranged in age from 44 to 88 at first testing wave; 60% were female. Results indicated sex differences in mean performance for five cognitive measures and in rates of decline for Information and Card Rotations. Only Synonyms demonstrated sex differences in genetic and environmental contributions to mean performance: heritability was higher in men than women. Despite differential longevity and susceptibility to disease, there are no consistent indications that men and women show different patterns of cognitive aging.

Social relationships, social support, and patterns of cognitive aging in healthy, high-functioning older adults: MacArthur studies of successful aging.

This study examines the relationship of social ties and support to patterns of cognitive aging in the MacArthur Studies of Successful Aging (see L. F. Berkman et al., 1993), a cohort study of 1,189 initially high-functioning older adults. Baseline and longitudinal data provide information on initial levels as well as changes in cognitive performance over a 7.5-year period. Linear regression analyses revealed that participants receiving more emotional support had better baseline performance, as did those who were unmarried and those reporting greater conflict with network members. Greater baseline emotional support was also a significant predictor of better cognitive function at the 7.5-year follow-up, controlling for baseline cognitive function and known sociodemographic, behavioral, psychological, and health status predictors of cognitive aging. The findings suggest the potential value of further research on the role of the social environment in protecting against cognitive declines at older ages.