Greater lifestyle engagement is associated with better age-adjusted cognitive abilities

Abstract

Previous evidence suggests that modifiable lifestyle factors, such as engagement in leisure activities, might slow the age-related decline of cognitive functions. Less is known, however, about which aspects of lifestyle might be particularly beneficial to healthy cognitive ageing, and whether they are associated with distinct cognitive domains (e.g. fluid and crystallized abilities) differentially. We investigated these questions in the cross-sectional Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN) data (N = 708, age 18-88), using datadriven exploratory structural equation modelling, confirmatory factor analyses, and age-residualized measures of cognitive differences across the lifespan. Specifically, we assessed the relative associations of the following five lifestyle factors on age-related differences of fluid and crystallized age-adjusted abilities: education/SES, physical health, mental health, social engagement, and intellectual engagement. We found that higher education, better physical and mental health, more social engagement and a greater degree of intellectual engagement were each individually correlated with better fluid and crystallized cognitive age-adjusted abilities. A joint path model of all lifestyle factors on crystallized and fluid abilities, which allowed a simultaneous assessment of the lifestyle domains, showed that physical health, social and intellectual engagement and education/SES explained unique, complementary variance, but mental health did not make significant contributions above and beyond the other four lifestyle factors and age. The total variance explained for fluid abilities was 14% and 16% for crystallized abilities. Our results are compatible with the hypothesis that intellectually and physically challenging as well as socially engaging activities are associated with better crystallized and fluid performance across the lifespan.

Modifiable lifestyle activities affect cognition in cognitively healthy middle-aged individuals at risk for late-life Alzheimer’s Disease

“…As education is strongly positively linked to IQ [73] and our cohort was highly educated, the question of reverse causation arises [40, 49, 74]. This points to the possibility that cognitive abilities may determine engagement in stimulating activities, rather than the inverse.…”

Correlation Constraints for Regression Models: Controlling Bias in Brain Age Prediction

“…To this end, a metric referred to as brain age delta , defined as the difference between brain-predicted age and chronological age, has been proposed as an index of the level of neuropathology in aging ( 2 – 4 ). Investigating the association between this metric with demographics, and lifestyle and cognitive variables can deepen the understanding of the processes that underpin healthy aging ( 5 ). In clinical research, brain age delta has the potential to index the severity of premature aging in patients suffering from disease.…”

Neural contributions to reduced fluid intelligence across the adult lifespan

“…This version was posted on 27/7/2022. In addition to physical exercise, engagement in socially and intellectually stimulating leisure activities is also thought to be beneficial for cognitive aging (Hughes et al, 2010;Kuiper et al, 2015;Yates et al, 2016;Borgeest et al, 2020). Therefore, given the significant moderating effect of the variety of regular physical activities, we next asked whether this generalises to the variety of regular nonphysical activities, again measured by questionnaire, as well as in a home interview (number of social or intellectual activities; range 4-43).…”

“…The substantial mediation effect for people engaging in relatively few regular physical activities (solid lines) is abolished for people engaging in a larger variety of activities (dashed lines), due primarily to decoupling of the relation between the neural response to task difficulty and fluid intelligence (blue lines). In addition to physical exercise, engagement in socially and intellectually stimulating leisure activities is also thought to be beneficial for cognitive aging (Hughes et al, 2010;Kuiper et al, 2015;Yates et al, 2016;Borgeest et al, 2020). Therefore, given the significant moderating effect of the variety of regular physical activities, we next asked whether this generalises to the variety of regular nonphysical activities, again measured by questionnaire, as well as in a home interview (number of social or intellectual activities; range 4-43).…”