Dataset Information

Associations of Widowhood and ?-Amyloid With Cognitive Decline in Cognitively Unimpaired Older Adults.

ABSTRACT: Importance:To reduce the rising incidence of clinical impairment due to Alzheimer disease, it is essential to define older adults at highest risk. Widowhood may be an unrecognized factor contributing to accelerated clinical progression along the Alzheimer disease pathway among cognitively unimpaired older adults. Objective:To determine whether widowhood status and level of brain ?-amyloid (ie, the Alzheimer disease pathologic protein) are additively or interactively associated with cognitive decline among cognitively unimpaired older adults. Design, Setting, and Participants:In this cohort study, 257 married, widowed, and unmarried (ie, never married, divorced, or separated) participants from the Harvard Aging Brain Study longitudinal cohort underwent baseline evaluation of neocortical ?-amyloid levels using Pittsburgh compound B positron emission tomography and 4 annual cognitive assessments. Data were collected from September 2010 to February 2017 and analyzed from July 2018 to July 2019. Main Outcomes and Measures:Cognitive performance was measured using the Preclinical Alzheimer Cognitive Composite. Results:Of the 257 participants, 153 (59.5%) were women, and the mean (SD) age was 73.5 (6.1) years; 145 participants (56.4%) were married (66 [45.5%] women), 77 (30.0%) were unmarried (56 [72.7%] women), and 35 (13.6%) were widowed (31 [88.6%] women). Compared with married participants, widowed participants demonstrated worsening cognitive performance after adjusting for age, sex, socioeconomic status, depression, and ?-amyloid levels (??=?-0.11; 95% CI, -0.19 to -0.04; P?=?.002) with no difference observed between married and unmarried participants. Furthermore, widowed participants with higher baseline ?-amyloid levels exhibited steeper cognitive decline (??=?-0.22; 95% CI, -0.42 to -0.03; P?=?.02), indicating both independent and interactive associations of ?-amyloid levels and widowhood with cognition. In a secondary model using dichotomous ?-amyloid-marital status groupings, the rate of cognitive decline among widowed participants with high ?-amyloid was nearly 3 times faster than among married participants with high ?-amyloid (widowed, high ?-amyloid: ?, -0.33; 95% CI, -0.46 to -0.19; P?

SUBMITTER: Biddle KD

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7099624 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Associations of Widowhood and β-Amyloid With Cognitive Decline in Cognitively Unimpaired Older Adults.

Biddle Kelsey D KD Jacobs Heidi I L HIL d'Oleire Uquillas Federico F Zide Benjamin S BS Kirn Dylan R DR Properzi Michael R MR Rentz Dorene M DM Johnson Keith A KA Sperling Reisa A RA Donovan Nancy J NJ

JAMA network open 20200205 2

<h4>Importance</h4>To reduce the rising incidence of clinical impairment due to Alzheimer disease, it is essential to define older adults at highest risk. Widowhood may be an unrecognized factor contributing to accelerated clinical progression along the Alzheimer disease pathway among cognitively unimpaired older adults.<h4>Objective</h4>To determine whether widowhood status and level of brain β-amyloid (ie, the Alzheimer disease pathologic protein) are additively or interactively associated wit ...[more]

PMID: 32101313

Similar Datasets

Project description:A major unanswered question in the dementia field is whether cognitively unimpaired individuals who harbor both Alzheimer's disease neuropathological hallmarks (that is, amyloid-β plaques and tau neurofibrillary tangles) can preserve their cognition over time or are destined to decline. In this large multicenter amyloid and tau positron emission tomography (PET) study (n = 1,325), we examined the risk for future progression to mild cognitive impairment and the rate of cognitive decline over time among cognitively unimpaired individuals who were amyloid PET-positive (A+) and tau PET-positive (T+) in the medial temporal lobe (A+TMTL+) and/or in the temporal neocortex (A+TNEO-T+) and compared them with A+T- and A-T- groups. Cox proportional-hazards models showed a substantially increased risk for progression to mild cognitive impairment in the A+TNEO-T+ (hazard ratio (HR) = 19.2, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 10.9-33.7), A+TMTL+ (HR = 14.6, 95% CI = 8.1-26.4) and A+T- (HR = 2.4, 95% CI = 1.4-4.3) groups versus the A-T- (reference) group. Both A+TMTL+ (HR = 6.0, 95% CI = 3.4-10.6) and A+TNEO-T+ (HR = 7.9, 95% CI = 4.7-13.5) groups also showed faster clinical progression to mild cognitive impairment than the A+T- group. Linear mixed-effect models indicated that the A+TNEO-T+ (β = -0.056 ± 0.005, T = -11.55, P < 0.001), A+TMTL+ (β = -0.024 ± 0.005, T = -4.72, P < 0.001) and A+T- (β = -0.008 ± 0.002, T = -3.46, P < 0.001) groups showed significantly faster longitudinal global cognitive decline compared to the A-T- (reference) group (all P < 0.001). Both A+TNEO-T+ (P < 0.001) and A+TMTL+ (P = 0.002) groups also progressed faster than the A+T- group. In summary, evidence of advanced Alzheimer's disease pathological changes provided by a combination of abnormal amyloid and tau PET examinations is strongly associated with short-term (that is, 3-5 years) cognitive decline in cognitively unimpaired individuals and is therefore of high clinical relevance.

Project description:ObjectiveResearch in animals has shown that chronic stress exacerbates tau pathology. In humans, psychological stress has been associated with higher risk of Alzheimer disease clinical syndrome. The objective of this cross-sectional study was to assess the hypothesis that stress coping ability (assessed via the Brief Resilience Scale [BRS]) is associated with tau burden and to evaluate whether these associations differed by sex and amyloid status (A+/A-) in cognitively unimpaired (CU) older adults.MethodsWe included 225 CU participants (mean age 70.4 ± 10.2 years, 48% female) enrolled in the population-based Mayo Clinic Study of Aging who completed the BRS and underwent amyloid-PET (Pittsburgh compound B-PET) and tau-PET (AV1451-PET). We fitted multiple regression and analysis of covariance models to assess the associations between BRS and tau-PET and the interaction with amyloid status and sex. We focused on entorhinal cortex (ERC) tau burden and also performed voxel-wise analyses. Age, sex, education, depression, and anxiety were considered as covariates.ResultsHigher stress coping ability was associated with lower tau burden in the medial temporal lobe (including ERC) and occipito-temporal and cuneal/precuneal cortices. The association was present in both A+ and A- but weaker in A- CU older adults. There was an interaction between amyloid status and stress coping ability that was restricted to the medial temporal lobe tau such that A+ CU older adults with lower stress coping abilities showed higher tau. There were no significant interactions between stress coping and sex.ConclusionsA faster termination of the stress response (higher coping ability) may limit the negative effects of stress on tau deposition. Conversely, lower stress coping ability may be an early sign of accumulating tau pathology. Longitudinal studies are warranted to clarify whether stress mechanisms act to exacerbate tau pathology or tau influences stress-related brain mechanisms and lowers the ability to cope with stress.

Dataset Information

Associations of Widowhood and ?-Amyloid With Cognitive Decline in Cognitively Unimpaired Older Adults.

Publications

Associations of Widowhood and β-Amyloid With Cognitive Decline in Cognitively Unimpaired Older Adults.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets