Don’t worry, be happy: How excessive worrying may influence the rate of neurodegeneration

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Wor­ry­ing and the Aging Brain (Dana Foundation):

Over the past decade, sci­en­tists and clin­i­cians have not­ed a sig­nif­i­cant asso­ci­a­tion between com­mon men­tal health con­di­tions and accel­er­at­ed brain aging—the changes to brain struc­ture, phys­i­ol­o­gy, and func­tion that are thought to lead to lat­er cog­ni­tive decline. Both depres­sion and anx­i­ety dis­or­ders, for exam­ple, are strong­ly cor­re­lat­ed with the devel­op­ment of demen­tias includ­ing Alzheimer’s dis­ease lat­er in life, yet it has been unclear why. Neu­ro­sci­en­tists and geron­tol­o­gists around the globe have dili­gent­ly worked to inves­ti­gate which par­tic­u­lar symp­toms might con­tribute to age-relat­ed cog­ni­tive decline.

New research from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh, using a machine learn­ing mod­el to pre­dict a person’s “brain age,” sug­gests that exces­sive wor­ry­ing and rumi­na­tion may influ­ence the speed of neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion and the mem­o­ry and atten­tion deficits that come along with it. Keep read­ing the excel­lent arti­cle Wor­ry­ing and the Aging Brain over at Dana Foun­da­tion’s website.

Recent Study:

Affec­tive prob­lems and decline in cog­ni­tive state in old­er adults: a sys­tem­at­ic review and meta-analy­sis (Psy­cho­log­i­cal Med­i­cine). From the Abstract:

  • Evi­dence sug­gests that affec­tive prob­lems, such as depres­sion and anx­i­ety, increase risk for late-life demen­tia. How­ev­er, the extent to which affec­tive prob­lems influ­ence cog­ni­tive decline, even many years pri­or to clin­i­cal diag­no­sis of demen­tia, is not clear. The present study sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly reviews and syn­the­sis­es the evi­dence for the asso­ci­a­tion between affec­tive prob­lems and decline in cog­ni­tive state (i.e., decline in non-spe­cif­ic cog­ni­tive func­tion) in old­er adults … A mul­ti-lev­el meta-analy­sis revealed that depres­sion assessed as a bina­ry pre­dic­tor or a con­tin­u­ous pre­dic­tor was sig­nif­i­cant­ly asso­ci­at­ed with decline in cog­ni­tive state … Results of the present study improve cur­rent under­stand­ing of the tem­po­ral nature of the asso­ci­a­tion between affec­tive prob­lems and decline in cog­ni­tive state. They also sug­gest that cog­ni­tive func­tion may need to be mon­i­tored close­ly in indi­vid­u­als with affec­tive dis­or­ders, as these indi­vid­u­als may be at par­tic­u­lar risk of greater cog­ni­tive decline.

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