Experimental Aging Research最新文献

Objective: To investigate cross-sectional associations between spouses' sensory loss and depressive symptoms, self-rated health, and functional disability.

Methods: We included 10,410 individuals from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. We used the cross-sectional design and determined hearing loss, vision loss, and dual sensory loss by self-reports. We assessed depressive symptoms using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. We assessed self-reported health status using one item. Functional disability was defined as having difficulties in activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL).

Results: Individuals with spouses' dual sensory loss had a higher prevalence of depressive symptoms (45.19%), ADL (17.31%), and IADL impairments (21.97%) and a lower rate of self-rated good health (20.78%) than those with no or single loss. Spouse's sensory loss was associated with depressive symptoms, self-rated health, ADL, and IADL impairments (p < .05). Husbands' ADL impairments were associated with wives' vision loss (p < .05). Wives' IADL impairments were associated with husbands' hearing loss (p < .05).

Conclusions: Spouses' sensory loss was related to depressive symptoms, self-rated health, ADL, and IADL impairments. There was a gender specificity in the effect of spousal vision loss or hearing loss on ADL and IADL impairments.

Background/study context: Research on older adults has shown impairments in nocturnal sleep, impacting motor memory consolidation and learning. However, previous studies primarily focus on simple tasks, limiting generalization to complex motor activities. Moreover, no evidence exists on how sleep influences adaptability and relearning in older adults.

Methods: Sixty older adults and 60 young adults practiced an underarm dart-throwing task. The participants were divided into 2 sub-groups: SLEEP, which practiced in the evening and was retested on the morning of the following day, and CONTROL, which practiced in the morning and was retested in the evening on the same day. The practice and retention phases were spaced 12 hours. We analyzed motor learning through persistence, adaptability and relearning rate.

Results: Sleep did not enhance motor learning for any group. While young adults exhibited retention, older adults did not, especially after nocturnal sleep. There was no difference between sub-groups in adaptability. Older adults demonstrated inferior relearning compared to young adults, independently of sleep.

Conclusion: Nocturnal sleep did not influence memory consolidation in any group. On the contrary, our findings suggest that nocturnal sleep harms retention in older adults. Age-related characteristics induce a worse relearning rate regardless of sleep occurrence.

Background: Higher levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) have been associated with better neurocognitive outcomes. BDNF is present in cardiovascular tissue, and some evidence suggests it may benefit cardiovascular function. The current study assessed whether there is a mediating and/or moderating role of cardiovascular health in the relationship between BDNF and brain and cognitive outcomes.

Method: We examined longitudinal data from 397 older adults (aged 54-89;164 females, 233 males) enrolled in the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative with available plasma BDNF, medical, neuroimaging, and cognitive assessments. We used path analysis and linear regression to estimate the mediating and moderating roles of two measures of cardiovascular health, the Framingham Risk Score (FRS) and pulse pressure, in the relationships between BDNF and longitudinal changes in brain structure (white matter hyperintensity volume, hippocampal volume, and primary visual cortex volume) and cognitive function (executive function, episodic memory, and language).

Results: There was no significant association of plasma BDNF with FRS or pulse pressure (ps > 0.31), precluding mediation. There were no robust associations between BDNF and longitudinal change in any brain structural or cognitive measures (ps > .12). Higher FRS was significantly associated with greater increases in WMH volume (ps < .01). FRS and pulse pressure were not associated with any other brain structural or cognitive outcomes (ps > .07).

Conclusion: These results suggest that cardiovascular health may not play an important role in the influence of BDNF on neurocognitive health in older adults.

Background: Disability in activities of daily living (ADL) is a common problem among nursing home residents. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the geriatric syndromes that contribute to disability in nursing home residents.

Method: The cross-sectional study included 124 older adults from two nursing homes. ADL disability was assessed with the Barthel Index. The sociodemographic characteristics and geriatric syndromes, including malnutrition, sarcopenia risk, frailty, immobility, urinary incontinence, cognitive impairment, and balance dysfunction were evaluated.

Results: The 124 residents had a mean age of 80.12 ± 9.20 years and included 55.67% males. Age, malnutrition, sarcopenia risk, frailty, immobility, urinary incontinence, cognitive impairment, and balance dysfunction were all significantly correlated with the Barthel Index. However, only malnutrition, immobility, and urinary incontinence were found to account for 84.9% of the variance in disability of nursing home residents in regression analysis. These geriatric syndromes are the best predictors of ADL disability in all models (p < .05).

Conclusion: This study found that malnutrition, immobility, and urinary incontinence considerably contributed to the disability profile of nursing home residents. Health professionals need to develop multi-dimensional care and prevention strategies, especially for geriatric syndromes such as malnutrition, immobility, and urinary incontinence.

Objective: Research suggests that executive functions and metacognitive abilities, including self-reflection and insight, may share underlying mechanisms since both rely on top-down cognitive processes and require self-regulation. However, these relationships have not been thoroughly examined by empirical research. The current study investigated the relationship between insight, self-reflection, and executive functions cross-sectionally across different stages of aging.

Methods: Participants were 1284 (655 men and 629 women) cognitively healthy community dwellers with an age range of 18-89 years (M = 47.91, SD = 19.83). The sample was divided into three groups based on age, e.g., the young adults (18-34 years-old), the middle-aged adults (35-59 years-old), and older adults (60 years and older). Participants completed multiple executive function tasks (including trail making, verbal fluency, Stroop, digit span) and a self-report insight and self-reflection measure individually in face-to-face sessions.

Results: The results show that education, age, digit span forward, which is a measure of short-term memory and phonemic fluency were significant predictors of self-reported insight. Furthermore, insight, but not self-reflection, had significant positive correlations with short-term memory and phonemic fluency across three age groups.

Conclusions: Overall, the results indicate that performance on executive function measures and self-reported self-reflection and insight are relatively independent cognitive abilities.

Resilience increases the ability of an individual to overcome adversity. It has not yet been determined how resilience is linked to quality of life among individuals experiencing knee osteoarthritis symptoms. To explore the inter-relationships of psychological distress, resilience and quality of life among older individuals with knee osteoarthritis. The study examined older adults in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, identifying osteoarthritis through verified physician diagnosis. Various factors, including resilience, psychological status, and quality of life, were measured. In the study with 338 older adults, 50.9% had knee osteoarthritis. Higher resilience was linked to lower depression, anxiety, and stress, and better quality of life in both groups with and without knee osteoarthritis. Psychological factors consistently mediated the link between resilience and quality of life even after controlling potential confounders. Analysis showed that depression, anxiety, and stress mediate the relationship between resilience and quality of life, indicating a significant influence even when considering various factors. Resilience appears to influence psychological well-being and quality of life among older adult with knee osteoarthritis.

Within-person variation in cognitive performance is linked to pathological aging. Cognitive fluctuations have not been analyzed using cognitive process models, such as the diffusion model, to characterize which cognitive processes contribute to variability in cognition. We collected 21 daily assessments of attention and personality in younger adults, healthy older adults, and those with mild cognitive impairment. We employed mixed-effects location scale models to analyze group differences on mean diffusion parameters and daily variability. Discussion focuses on how these methods extend our understanding of how cognitive deficits might appear in aging and disease and the moderating influence of daily personality.

Glutamatergic imbalance, particularly downregulation of α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4- isoxazole propionic acid receptor (AMPARs) endocytosis, has been addressed as a possible reason for cognitive dysfunctions in Alzheimer's disease (AD). We hypothesized that inhibition of AMPAR endocytosis may ameliorate memory impairment in AD model of rats. To approach this, twenty-four adults male Wistar rats were divided into three groups: saline + saline (control group), Aβ + saline, and Aβ + Tat-GluR23Y (AMPA endocytosis inhibitor). Animals received an intracerebroventricular (i.c.v) injection of Aβ (1-42) to induce neuro-toxicity, followed by chronic administration of GluR23Y, and further behavioral assessments by MWM. Afterward, the hippocampal level of Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) and c-Fos was measured via Western blotting. The results of our study revealed that chronic administration of GluR23Y improved both working and reference memories evidenced by shorter latency time and longer total time spent in the target zone in MWM. Additionally, this improvement was paralleled by an increase in BDNF, but a decrease in c-Fos. In conclusion, GluR23Y improves spatial memory impairment at least partly via elevating neuroprotective factor of BDNF and reducing apoptotic protein of c-Fos.

The aim of this study was to investigate the mediating effect of cognitive reserve (CR) on the association between physical activity and cognitive function in community-dwelling older adults. A total of 495 community-dwelling older adults were included in this cross-sectional study. The CR, cognitive function, physical activity, and the potential confounders were assessed. Regression and bootstrap analyses were used to explore the mediating role of CR in physical activity and cognitive function. Compared to older adults with low to moderate physical activity, older adults with high physical activity had significantly better global cognitive function (βMoCA scores = 1.22, 95% CI 0.41 ~ 2.04) and visual spatial function (βCDT scores = 0.52, 95% CI 0.11 ~ 0.94) after adjustment for the confounders. CR mediated the association between physical activity and cognitive function with an indirect effect for global cognitive function (βMoCAscores = -0.29, 95% CI -0.56 ~ -0.09) and visual spatial function (βCDTscores = -0.14, 95% CI -0.28 ~ -0.05) after adjusting for the confounders, with 23.8% and 26.7% as percentage of mediation, respectively. These findings suggest that high physical activity could be effective in increasing cognitive reserve and preserving or improving cognitive function in community-dwelling older adults.

Background: Force steadiness can be impaired under dual-task conditions in older adults. Since this impairment is attributed to their limited attentional resources, we hypothesized that the degree of cortical activity involved in muscle contraction would affect force steadiness under dual-task conditions. To test this hypothesis, based on the premise that dorsiflexion requires more cortical resources than plantarflexion, we compared the effects of additional motor and cognitive task demands on force steadiness between dorsiflexion and plantarflexion contractions in young and older adults.

Method: Eighteen young and eighteen older adults performed a force tracking task by applying either isometric dorsiflexion or plantarflexion force concurrently with and without (control) secondary upper-limb motor or cognitive task.

Results: Force steadiness was impaired by both secondary upper-limb motor and cognitive tasks for the dorsiflexors and plantarflexors in older adults. While force steadiness was impaired similarly by additional task demands regardless of the secondary task type for the dorsiflexors, the impairment effect was larger in the secondary cognitive than motor task for the plantarflexors.

Conclusion: The effects of dual-task demand on force steadiness could depend on the degree of cortical activity involved in muscle contraction in older adults.