Certain personality traits may be a key factor in people developing mild cognitive impairment later in life, according to a new study.
Being more conscientious and outgoing keeps mild cognitive impairment in check for longer, while having higher levels of neuroticism increases the chances of cognitive decline, according to a study published Monday in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
“Personality traits reflect relatively enduring patterns of thinking and behavior, which can cumulatively affect engagement in healthy and unhealthy behaviors and thought patterns postdoctoral fellow in psychology at the University of Victoria, Canada, in a statement.
“The accumulation of experiences over a lifetime may contribute to susceptibility to specific diseases or disorders, such as mild cognitive impairment, or contribute to individual differences in the ability to withstand age-related neurological changes,” she said.
While this association is seen in clinical practice, it’s difficult to know what the “chicken or the egg” is, said Richard Isaacson, director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic at the Center for Brain Health at Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt School of Medicine.
“Specific traits may increase the risk due to a lifetime of behaviors that predispose a person to developing cognitive decline or Alzheimer’s disease, or there may be more of a direct biological role related to early disease pathology,” said Isaacson, who was not involved. in the study.
“Neuroticism is specifically a trait that comes to mind, and previous meta-analyses have also shown this. Rumination and worry are linked to smaller brain volumes,” he said in an email. “It is unclear whether the stress/neuroinflammation pathway leads to this. There is no biomarker for this, so it is difficult to prove it.”
Main personality traits
The study looked at personalities of about 2,000 people who were participating in the Rush Memory and Aging Project, a longitudinal study of older Chicago-area adults that began in 1997. The study examined the role of three main personality traits — conscientiousness, extroversion and neuroticism—about how people resisted cognitive decline in adulthood.
Neuroticism is a personality trait that affects how well a person handles stress. Neurotic people face life in a state of anxiety, anger, and self-consciousness and often see small frustrations as hopelessly overwhelming or threatening.
Conscious people tend to have high levels of self-discipline and are organized and goal-directed, Yoneda said, while extroverts are enthusiastic about life and often assertive and outgoing.
People with a high score on conscientiousness or a low score on neuroticism were significantly less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment during the course of the study, Yoneda said.
Every additional six points a person scored on a scale of awareness was “associated with a 22% reduction in risk of transitioning from normal cognitive functioning to mild cognitive impairment,” Yoneda said.
That could translate to an 80-year-old with high consciousness living two more years with no cognitive problems compared to those with a low consciousness score, the analysis said.
Being more outgoing and socially engaged appeared to offer another year of dementia-free life, the study found. It also increased a person’s ability to regain normal cognitive function after receiving a previous diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment, perhaps because of the benefits of socialization.
However, as levels of neuroticism increased, so did the risk of transitioning to cognitive decline: every additional seven points on the scale “was associated with a 12% increase in risk,” Yoneda said, which may translate to to lose at least one year of healthy life.
This study is not the first to show a connection between personality and brain function.
Previous research has shown that people who are more open to experience, more mindful and less neurotic perform better on tests and experience less cognitive decline over time.
Source: CNN Brasil
