Reaction Time and Mortality from the Major Causes of Death:The NHANES-III Study

Studies examining the relation of information processing speed, as measured by reaction time, with mortality are scarce. We explored these associations in a representative sample of the US population

Common Genetic Variants Explain the Majority of the Correlation Between Height and Intelligence : The Generation Scotland Study

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Is telomere length socially patterned? Evidence from the West of Scotland Twenty-07 study

Lower socioeconomic status (SES) is strongly associated with an increased risk of morbidity and premature mortality, but it is not known if the same is true for telomere length, a marker often used to assess biological ageing. The West of Scotland Twenty-07 Study was used to investigate this and consists of three cohorts aged approximately 35 (N = 775), 55 (N = 866) and 75 years (N = 544) at the time of telomere length measurement. Four sets of measurements of SES were investigated: those collected contemporaneously with telomere length assessment, educational markers, SES in childhood and SES over the preceding twenty years. We found mixed evidence for an association between SES and telomere length. In 35-year-olds, many of the education and childhood SES measures were associated with telomere length, i.e. those in poorer circumstances had shorter telomeres, as was intergenerational social mobility, but not accumulated disadvantage. A crude estimate showed that, at the same chronological age, social renters, for example, were nine years (biologically) older than home owners. No consistent associations were apparent in those aged 55 or 75. There is evidence of an association between SES and telomere length, but only in younger adults and most strongly using education and childhood SES measures. These results may reflect that childhood is a sensitive period for telomere attrition. The cohort differences are possibly the result of survival bias suppressing the SES-telomere association; cohort effects with regard different experiences of SES; or telomere possibly being a less effective marker of biological ageing at older ages

Investigation of attentional bias in obsessive compulsive disorder with and without depression in visual search

Copyright: © 2013 Morein-Zamir et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedWhether Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is associated with an increased attentional bias to emotive stimuli remains controversial. Additionally, it is unclear whether comorbid depression modulates abnormal emotional processing in OCD. This study examined attentional bias to OC-relevant scenes using a visual search task. Controls, non-depressed and depressed OCD patients searched for their personally selected positive images amongst their negative distractors, and vice versa. Whilst the OCD groups were slower than healthy individuals in rating the images, there were no group differences in the magnitude of negative bias to concern-related scenes. A second experiment employing a common set of images replicated the results on an additional sample of OCD patients. Although there was a larger bias to negative OC-related images without pre-exposure overall, no group differences in attentional bias were observed. However, OCD patients subsequently rated the images more slowly and more negatively, again suggesting post-attentional processing abnormalities. The results argue against a robust attentional bias in OCD patients, regardless of their depression status and speak to generalized difficulties disengaging from negative valence stimuli. Rather, post-attentional processing abnormalities may account for differences in emotional processing in OCD.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

To what extent does IQ 'explain' socio-economic variations in function?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The aims of this study were to examine the extent to which higher intellectual abilities protect higher socio-economic groups from functional decline and to examine whether the contribution of intellectual abilities is independent of childhood deprivation and low birth weight and other socio-economic and developmental factors in early life.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The Maastricht Aging Study (MAAS) is a prospective cohort study based upon participants in a registration network of general practices in The Netherlands. Information was available on 1211 men and women, 24 – 81 years old, who were without cognitive impairment at baseline (1993 – 1995), who ever had a paid job, and who participated in the six-year follow-up. Main outcomes were longitudinal decline in important components of quality of life and successful aging, i.e., self-reported physical, affective, and cognitive functioning.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Persons with a low occupational level at baseline showed more functional decline than persons with a high occupational level. Socio-economic and developmental factors from early life hardly contributed to the adult socio-economic differences in functional decline. Intellectual abilities, however, took into account more than one third of the association between adult socio-economic status and functional decline. The contribution of the intellectual abilities was independent of the early life factors.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Rather than developmental and socio-economic characteristics of early life, the findings substantiate the importance of intellectual abilities for functional decline and their contribution – as potential, but neglected confounders – to socio-economic differences in functioning, successful aging, and quality of life. The higher intellectual abilities in the higher socio-economic status groups may also underlie the higher prevalences of mastery, self-efficacy and efficient coping styles in these groups.</p

Intelligence in childhood and atherosclerosis of the carotid and peripheral arteries in later life:The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936

ObjectiveThere is some evidence that people who score higher on tests of intelligence in childhood have lower carotid intima-media thickness and higher ankle brachial index in middle age. These findings need replicating in other, older populations. We investigated the prospective relationship between intelligence in childhood and atherosclerosis in the carotid and peripheral arteries at age 73 years.MethodsParticipants were 713 members of the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 whose intelligence was assessed at age 11 years. At age 73 years, carotid intima-media thickness and degree of stenosis were measured using ultrasound imaging; ankle-brachial index was measured using Doppler ultrasound.ResultsThere were no significant associations between intelligence at age 11 and measures of atherosclerosis at age 73. In age- and sex-adjusted analyses, for a standard deviation higher score in intelligence, intima-media thickness (x 10) was lower by 0.07 (-0.20, 0.06) mm and ankle brachial index (x 10) was lower by 0.09 (-0.24, 0.07); odds ratios for having carotid stenosis &gt;25% or peripheral arterial disease were 0.98 (0.82, 1.16) and 1.05 (0.81, 1.36) respectively.ConclusionIn this study of people aged 73 years, higher childhood intelligence was not associated with reduced risk of atherosclerosis in the carotid or peripheral arteries

Social patterning in grip strength and in its association with age; A cross sectional analysis using the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS)

Background: Grip strength in early adulthood and midlife is an important predictor of disability, morbidity and mortality in later life. Understanding social patterning in grip strength at different life stages could improve insight into inequalities in age-related decline and when in the life course interventions could prevent the emergence of inequalities. Methods: Using United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) data on 19,292 people aged 16 to 99, fractional polynomial models were fitted to identify which function of age best described its association with grip strength. Linear regressions were used to establish whether socio-economic position (SEP), as measured by maternal education, highest educational qualification and income, was associated with grip strength. To test whether the association between age and grip strength was modified by SEP, interactions between SEP and the age terms were added. Differentiation was used to identify the age at which grip strength was highest for men and women and predicted levels of grip strength at peak were compared. Results: SEP is significantly associated with grip strength on all SEP measures, except education for men. Grip strength is highest at a younger age, and less strong for all measures of disadvantage for women and most measures for men. Interaction terms were not statistically significant indicating that the association between age and grip strength was not modified by SEP. Grip strength peak was 29.3 kg at age 33 for women with disadvantaged childhood SEP compared with 30.2 kg at age 35 for women with advantaged childhood SEP. Conclusion: The SEP differences in age and level of peak grip strength could be indicative of decline in muscle strength beginning earlier and from a lower base for disadvantaged groups. This could impact on the capacity for healthy ageing for those with disadvantaged SEP

Flower Bats (Glossophaga soricina) and Fruit Bats (Carollia perspicillata) Rely on Spatial Cues over Shapes and Scents When Relocating Food

Natural selection can shape specific cognitive abilities and the extent to which a given species relies on various cues when learning associations between stimuli and rewards. Because the flower bat Glossophaga soricina feeds primarily on nectar, and the locations of nectar-producing flowers remain constant, G. soricina might be predisposed to learn to associate food with locations. Indeed, G. soricina has been observed to rely far more heavily on spatial cues than on shape cues when relocating food, and to learn poorly when shape alone provides a reliable cue to the presence of food.Here we determined whether G. soricina would learn to use scent cues as indicators of the presence of food when such cues were also available. Nectar-producing plants fed upon by G. soricina often produce distinct, intense odors. We therefore expected G. soricina to relocate food sources using scent cues, particularly the flower-produced compound, dimethyl disulfide, which is attractive even to G. soricina with no previous experience of it. We also compared the learning of associations between cues and food sources by G. soricina with that of a related fruit-eating bat, Carollia perspicillata. We found that (1) G. soricina did not learn to associate scent cues, including dimethyl disulfide, with feeding sites when the previously rewarded spatial cues were also available, and (2) both the fruit-eating C. perspicillata and the flower-feeding G. soricina were significantly more reliant on spatial cues than associated sensory cues for relocating food.These findings, taken together with past results, provide evidence of a powerful, experience-independent predilection of both species to rely on spatial cues when attempting to relocate food