Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Jan;76(1):80-5.
doi: 10.1097/PSY.0000000000000016. Epub 2013 Dec 23.

Perceived stress and change in cognitive function among adults 65 years and older

Neelum T Aggarwal  1 , Robert S Wilson, Todd L Beck, Kumar B Rajan, Carlos F Mendes de Leon, Denis A Evans, Susan A Everson-Rose
Affiliations

Perceived stress and change in cognitive function among adults 65 years and older

Neelum T Aggarwal et al. Psychosom Med. 2014 Jan.

Abstract

Objective: Exposure to acute and chronic stress can affect learning and memory, but most evidence comes from animal studies or clinical observations. Almost no population-based studies have investigated the relation of stress to cognition or changes in cognition over time. We examined whether higher levels of perceived stress were associated with accelerated decline in cognitive function in older blacks and whites from a community-based population sample.

Methods: Participants included 6207 black and white adults (65.7% black, 63.3% women) from the Chicago Health and Aging Project. Two to five in-home assessments were completed over an average of 6.8 years of follow-up and included sociodemographics, health behaviors, psychosocial measures, cognitive function tests, and health history. Perceived stress was measured by a six-item scale, and a composite measure of four tests of cognition was used to determine cognitive function at each assessment.

Results: Mixed-effects regression models showed that increasing levels of perceived stress were related to lower initial cognitive scores (B = -0.0379, standard error = 0.0025, p < .001) and a faster rate of cognitive decline (stress × time interaction: B = -0.0015, standard error = 0.0004, p < .001). Results were similar after adjusting for demographic variables, smoking, systolic blood pressure, body mass index, chronic medical conditions, and psychosocial factors and did not vary by race, sex, age, or education.

Conclusions: Increasing levels of stress are independently associated with accelerated declines in cognitive function in black and white adults 65 years and older.

Keywords: aging; cognitive function; longitudinal; risk factors; stress.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: No authors have competing conflicts of interest to declare.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Schwabe L, Joels M, Roozendaal B, Wolf OT, Oitzl MS. Stress effects on memory: An update and integration. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2012;36:1740–9. - PubMed
    1. Schwabe L, Wolf OT. The context counts: congruent learning and testing environments prevent memory retrieval impairment following stress. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2009;9:229–36. - PubMed
    1. Schwabe L, Wolf OT. Stress impairs the reconsolidation of autobiographical memories. Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2010;94:153–7. - PubMed
    1. Weerda R, Muehlhan M, Wolf OT, Thiel CM. Effects of acute psychosocial stress on working memory related brain activity in men. Hum Brain Mapp. 2010;31:1418–29. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Magarinos AM, McEwen BS, Flugge G, Fuchs E. Chronic psychosocial stress causes apical dendritic atrophy of hippocampal CA3 pyramidal neurons in subordinate tree shrews. J Neurosci. 1996;16:3534–40. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types