Interactive effects of subjective memory complaints and hypertension on learning and memory performance in the elderly

Abstract

This study evaluated whether the relation between subjective memory complaints and cognitive performance is influenced by the presence of hypertension in the elderly. One hundred and five healthy older adults, 70-89 years of age, with and without hypertension treatment or diagnosis, completed a scale of subjective memory complaints. Participants were divided into those with mild memory concerns and those with minimal or no complaints. All participants completed a battery of neuropsychological tests including measures of verbal and non-verbal memory. After controlling for differences in age, gender, education, and overall intellectual ability, there were significant main effects for memory concerns and significant interactions for memory complaints and hypertension on several measures of memory performance. There were no main effects for hypertension on memory performance. Simple effects analyses of the interactions showed that the hypertensive complainers demonstrated poorer performance on measures of long-term memory and greater reliance on short-term recall than the hypertensive non-complainers. There were no differences in memory performance for the non-hypertensive groups. Among healthy elderly community-dwelling adults, those with mild subjective memory complaints in the context of hypertension demonstrated greater objective cognitive difficulties than those without hypertension as well as a greater reliance on a less efficient learning strategy. These findings suggest that memory concerns in the presence of hypertension may be important when evaluating treatment efficacy in these individuals and for identifying differences in cognitive aging.

Genetic Risk, Vascular Function, and Subjective Cognitive Complaints Predict Objective Cognitive Function in Healthy Older Adults: Results From the Brain in Motion Study

“…Consistent with previous work (Nguyen et al, 2016), age (r = −0.226, p < 0.001), sex (r = −0.393, p < 0.001), and premorbid IQ (r = 0.286, p < 0.001) were associated with verbal memory and were used as co-variates in the analysis for this study. While depression scores were not significantly associated with verbal memory performance (r = −0.093, p = 0.154), there was a weak correlation with verbal memory complaints (r = 0.139, p = 0.033) and thus, we retained depression as a co-variate.…”

“…The main finding of this study is that subjective verbal memory and total memory complaints predicted lower memory performance in participants, even after considering vascular measures, genetic risk, and demographics. As in previous studies, age, sex, and premorbid IQ were used as covariates in this study (Nguyen et al, 2016) and contributed the most to the total variation in objective verbal memory explained by the regression model (i.e., R 2 ). In the overall models, age contributed to 15.8-18.2% of the variance in predicting verbal memory.…”

Role of DHEA and cortisol in prefrontal-amygdalar development and working memory

“…These effects appear to be dose-dependent with higher daily cortisol levels associated with more dramatic reductions in functional connectivity. Further, recent studies from our group have demonstrated that DHEA may enhance working memory and performance in tests of visuo-motor attention by impacting the development of cortico-amygdalar and cortico-hippocampal networks, respectively (Nguyen, Haws, Fitzhugh, Torre, Hishaw and Alexander, 2016; Nguyen, Wu, Lew, Albaugh, Botteron, Hudziak, Fonov, Collins, Campbell, Booij, Herba, Monnier, Ducharme and McCracken, 2017). Taken together, these studies suggest that interactions between DHEA and cortisol may shape cortico-limbic development in a way that significantly alters cognitive and behavioral function.…”

Precision Aging: Applying Precision Medicine to the Field of Cognitive Aging

“…Additionally, obese individuals show increased rates of cognitive decline (Elias et al, 2003; Cournot et al, 2006), and increased risk for dementias, including AD (Gustafson et al, 2003; Rosengren et al, 2005; Stewart et al, 2005; Whitmer et al, 2005). Hypertension has been associated with deficits in memory, processing speed, and cognitive flexibility (Hannesdottir et al, 2009; Nguyen et al, 2016) even after optimal medication control (Brady et al, 2005; Verhaaren et al, 2013), as well as increased risk for AD (McGuinness et al, 2009; Power et al, 2018). HF most prominently affects learning and memory, but may also impact information processing speed, attention, language, and executive functions (Mapelli et al, 2011; Miller et al, 2012; Hajduk et al, 2013) and results in faster age-related memory decline (Vogels et al, 2007; Harkness et al, 2011).…”