Niveles de presión arterial y cambios longitudinales en relación con factores de la red social: ¿Mejor juntos o por separado?

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between social network variables andlevels of and longitudinal changes in blood pressure in a middle-aged/older sample. Theparticipants (50-75 years at baseline; n=1097) responded to questions concerning socialrelationships at baseline and their blood pressure (diastolic, systolic) was measured. Bloodpressure levels were reassessed 5, 10, and 15 years later. Latent growth models with responses toquestions concerning social relationships as predictors and basic demographic factors (age, sex) ascovariates, unexpectedly indicated that a more limited social network (no close friend, few visits,little contact with friends in other ways, not living with someone, and a composite index based onall questions) was associated with significantly lower diastolic blood pressure levels. For systolicblood pressure a similar result was observed for one of the variables (lack of a close friend). Ingeneral, these effects diminished over time, as indexed by the positive relationship between severalof the social variables and slope. The results were little affected by inclusion of additionalcovariates (e.g. measures of psychological distress, smoking/alcohol habits, and BMI) suggestingthat the origins of this unexpected pattern of findings must probably be sought for in other subjectrelatedfactors, such as, for example, increased help seeking. Future studies should considerqualitative aspects (e.g. feelings of loneliness, quality of social relationships) in addition tostructural aspects to provide a better understanding of these associations.El objetivo de este estudio fue examinar la relación entre las variables de la red social y losniveles de cambios longitudinales en la presión arterial en la muestra que consta de la gente demediana y tercera edad. Los participantes (50-75 años; n=1097) respondieron a las preguntas quetrataban el tema de relaciones sociales y se midió su presión arterial (diastólica, sistólica). Sevolvió a valorar los niveles de presión arterial 5, 10 y 15 años después. Modelos de crecimientolatente con respuestas a las preguntas que trataban el tema de relaciones sociales (o un índice)como predictores y factores demográficos básicos (edad, sexo) como covariables,inesperadamente, indicaron que la red social más limitada (sin amigos íntimos, con pocas visitas eíndice compuesto) se relacionaba con el nivel de presión arterial diastólica significativamente másbaja. Para la presión arterial sistólica se confirmó el resultado similar para una de las variables(falta de amigos cercanos). En general, estos efectos disminuyeron con el tiempo, según estáindexado por la relación positiva entre distintas variables sociales y la pendiente. La inclusión decovariables adicionales (p. ej. medición de trastornos psicológicos, hábitos de fumar y beberalcohol e IMC) afectaron un poco a los resultados, sugiriendo que los orígenes de este patrón deresultados inesperado probablemente los hay que buscar en los factores relacionados con el sujetoy no aquellos relacionados con el estilo de vida, como p. ej. aumento de la búsqueda de ayuda. Losfuturos estudios deberían considerar aspectos cualitativos (p. ej. sentimiento de soledad, calidad derelaciones sociales), además de los aspectos estructurales, para proporcionar un entendimientomejor de estas asociaciones

Executive Processes Underpin the Bilingual Advantage on Phonemic Fluency: Evidence from Analyses of Switching and Clustering

Bilinguals often show a disadvantage in lexical access on verbal fluency tasks wherein the criteria require the production of words from semantic categories. However, the pattern is more heterogeneous for letter (phonemic) fluency wherein the task is to produce words beginning with a given letter. Here, bilinguals often outperform monolinguals. One explanation for this is that phonemic fluency, as compared with semantic fluency, is more greatly underpinned by executive processes and that bilinguals exhibit better performance on phonemic fluency due to better executive functions. In this study, we re-analyzed phonemic fluency data from the Betula study, scoring outputs according to two measures that purportedly reflect executive processes: clustering and switching. Consistent with the notion that bilinguals have superior executive processes and that these can be used to offset a bilingual disadvantage in verbal fluency, bilinguals (35-65 years at baseline) demonstrated greater switching and clustering throughout the 15-year study period

Sociala relationers och fritidsaktiviteters påverkan på kognitiv funktion i vuxenliv och risk för demens : Longitudinella populationsbaserade studier

Today, as we live longer, dementia diseases are becoming more prevalent around the world. Thus, further knowledge of how to maintain levels of cognitive functioning in old age and how to identify factors that postpone the onset of dementia are of acute interest. Lifestyle patterns and social life are important aspects to consider in this regard. This thesis includes three studies. Study I investigated the association between participation in various leisure activities in old age (≥65 years) and risk of incident all-cause dementia. Analyses of the total follow-up time period (15 years) showed that higher levels of “Social” and “Total” leisure activity were associated with decreased risk of dementia. In Study II, the aim was to investigate the association between various aspects of social relationships in old age (≥65 years) and risk of incidents of all-cause dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Results showed that over the total follow-up period (16 years) higher values on the relationship index were associated with reduced risk of both dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Visiting/visits of friends and acquaintances more than once a week was related to decreased risk for all-cause dementia, but not for Alzheimer's disease. However, in neither Study I nor II did any of these factors alter the risk of all-cause dementia or Alzheimer's disease when near-onset dementias were removed from the analyses (Study I, up to five years; Study II, up to three years). In Study III the aim was to investigate the association between social network size and cognitive ability in a middle-aged (40–60 years) sample. The idea was that if social network size can moderate negative age-related influence on memory functions, it might also put an individual on a cognitive trajectory that is beneficial in old age. Results from longitudinal analyses showed that baseline network size was positively related to five-year changes in semantic memory and with changes in both semantic and episodic memory at the ten-year follow-up. Social network size was unrelated to changes in visuospatial performance. Taken together, enrichment factors measured in old age (≥ 65 years) did not alter the risk of all-cause dementia or Alzheimer's disease when near-onset dementias were removed from the analyses. These results might reflect protective short-term effects or reverse causality, meaning that in the prodromal phase of dementia individuals tend to withdraw from activity. Social network size in middle age (40-60 years), however, appears to have beneficial long-term effects on cognitive functioning. The results highlight the importance of long follow-up periods and the need to adjust for the influences of reverse causality when investigating the impact of a socially and mentally active life on cognitive functioning

Blood Pressure Levels and Longitudinal Changes in Relation to Social Network Factors

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between social network variables and levels of and longitudinal changes in blood pressure in a middle-aged/older sample. The participants (50-75 years at baseline; n=1097) responded to questions concerning social relationships at baseline and their blood pressure (diastolic, systolic) was measured. Blood pressure levels were reassessed 5, 10, and 15 years later. Latent growth models with responses to questions concerning social relationships as predictors and basic demographic factors (age, sex) as covariates, unexpectedly indicated that a more limited social network (no close friend, few visits, little contact with friends in other ways, not living with someone, and a composite index based on all questions) was associated with significantly lower diastolic blood pressure levels. For systolic blood pressure a similar result was observed for one of the variables (lack of a close friend). In general, these effects diminished over time, as indexed by the positive relationship between several of the social variables and slope. The results were little affected by inclusion of additional covariates (e.g. measures of psychological distress, smoking/alcohol habits, and BMI) suggesting that the origins of this unexpected pattern of findings must probably be sought for in other subjectrelated factors, such as, for example, increased help seeking. Future studies should consider qualitative aspects (e.g. feelings of loneliness, quality of social relationships) in addition to structural aspects to provide a better understanding of these associations

Blood Pressure Levels and Longitudinal Changes in Relation to Social Network Factors

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between social network variables and levels of and longitudinal changes in blood pressure in a middle-aged/older sample. The participants (50-75 years at baseline; n=1097) responded to questions concerning social relationships at baseline and their blood pressure (diastolic, systolic) was measured. Blood pressure levels were reassessed 5, 10, and 15 years later. Latent growth models with responses to questions concerning social relationships as predictors and basic demographic factors (age, sex) as covariates, unexpectedly indicated that a more limited social network (no close friend, few visits, little contact with friends in other ways, not living with someone, and a composite index based on all questions) was associated with significantly lower diastolic blood pressure levels. For systolic blood pressure a similar result was observed for one of the variables (lack of a close friend). In general, these effects diminished over time, as indexed by the positive relationship between several of the social variables and slope. The results were little affected by inclusion of additional covariates (e.g. measures of psychological distress, smoking/alcohol habits, and BMI) suggesting that the origins of this unexpected pattern of findings must probably be sought for in other subjectrelated factors, such as, for example, increased help seeking. Future studies should consider qualitative aspects (e.g. feelings of loneliness, quality of social relationships) in addition to structural aspects to provide a better understanding of these associations

Reading Habits Among Older Adults in Relation to Level and 15-Year Changes in Verbal Fluency and Episodic Recall

The main objective of this study was to investigate reading habits in older adults in relation to level and 15-year changes in verbal fluency and episodic recall. We examined a sample of 1157 participants (55 years at baseline) up to 15 years after the baseline assessment using latent growth curve modeling of cognitive measures with baseline reading frequency (books, weekly magazines) as a predictor of cognitive level (intercept) and rate of change (slope). Subgroup analyses were performed to investigate the role of an early adult g factor in the association between reading habits and cognitive ability in midlife. Frequent reading of books, but not of magazines, was associated with higher levels of verbal fluency and recall but unrelated to rate of longitudinal decline. Subgroup analyses indicated that the g factor in early adulthood predicted reading and cognitive level in midlife and this factor removed the current association between reading habits and level of cognitive ability (both cognitive factors). The results indicate an enduring relationship between book reading and level of cognitive ability across the adult life span and provide little support of the hypothesis that frequent reading protects against latelife cognitive decline. The extent to which book reading promotes cognitive functioning in childhood/youth remains to be demonstrated. Intervention studies may be useful in this regard

Different Features of Bilingualism in Relation to Executive Functioning

The notion that the long-term practice of managing two languages is beneficial for the executive control system is an ongoing debate. Criticism have been raised that studies demonstrating a bilingual advantage often suffer from small sample sizes, and do not control for fluid intelligence as a possible confound. Taking those suggested factors into account, focusing on older bilingual age groups and investigating the potential effects of linguistic distances, this study aimed to improve the interpretations of the bilinguals’ advantages. Measures of inhibition (Flanker, Stroop, Simon task) and switching (Number-letter, Color-Shape, Local-global task) were collected in participants in the ages 50-75 years (n = 193). Despite a large study sample, results did not support any beneficial effects related to improve processing costs in executive functioning. Sub-analyses of the two different language groups (Swedish – Finnish / Swedish – English) intended to investigate the effect of linguistic distances did not change this outcome. Future studies exploring the potential long-term term effects of bilingualism would benefit from identifying tests of cognitive control with greater ecological validity and include other measures of cognitive functioning. Language learning interventions may also be a promising tool for future research

The impact of spoken action words on performance in a cross-modal oddball task

In this study a cross-modal oddball task was employed to study the effect that words spokeneither non-urgently or urgently would have on a digit categorization task and if women wouldexhibit greater behavioral inhibitory control. The words were unrelated to the task itself, butrelated to the action required to complete the task. Forty participants (21 women) conducteda computerized categorization task while exposed to a sinewave tone as a standard stimulus(75% of the trials) or a to-be ignored word (press, stop) spoken either non-urgently orurgently as unexpected auditory deviant stimulus (6.25% trials for each category). Urgentwords had sharp intonation and an average fundamental frequency (F0) ranging from 191.9(stop) to 204.6 (press) Hz. Non-urgent words had low intonation with average F0 rangingfrom 103.9.9 (stop) to 120.3 (press) Hz. As expected, deviant distraction and longerresponse times were found by exposure to the word stop, but deviant distraction was notfound to be significant with the word press or due to intonation. While the results showedthat women had in general longer reaction times, there were no gender differences foundrelated to the deviant distraction caused by word or intonation. The present results do notsupport the hypothesis that women have greater behavioral inhibitory control, but there wasevidence that the meaning of the word could influence response times

Time on task matters most in video game expertise

In this study, we investigated whether working memory capacity (WMC), personality characteristics (grit) and number of matches played (time on task) can predict performance score (matchmaking rating [MMR]) in experienced players of a popular video game called Dota 2. A questionnaire and four online-based cognitive tasks were used to gather the data, and structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to investigate the interrelationships between constructs. The results showed that time on task was the strongest predictor of MMR, and grit also significantly influenced performance. However, WMC did not play a substantial role in predicting performance while playing Dota 2. These results are discussed in relation to sample characteristics and the role of deliberate practice and skill acquisition within the domain of playing Dota 2. Further, we suggest that future research investigates the social aspects of attaining skill, the relationship between personality and performance, and the qualitative aspects of time spent on a task

Bidirectional Within- and Between-Person Relations Between Physical Activity and Cognitive Function

Objectives: To examine bidirectional within- and between-person relations between physical activity and cognitive function across 15 years. Methods: Participants (N = 1722, age range 40-85 years, 55% women) were drawn from the Betula prospective cohort study. We included four waves of data. Bivariate latent curve models with structured residuals were estimated to examine bidirectional within- and between-person relations between physical activity and cognitive function (episodic memory recall, verbal fluency, visuospatial ability). Results: We observed no statistically significant bidirectional within-person relations over time. Higher levels of physical activity at baseline were related to less decline in episodic memory recall. Positive occasion-specific within- and between-person relations were observed, with the most consistent being between physical activity and episodic memory recall. Discussion: The lack of bidirectional within-person relations indicate that shorter time lags may be needed to capture time-ordered within-person relations. The link between higher physical activity at baseline and less decline in episodic memory recall over time may indicate a protective effect of physical activity on episodic memory recall