Department of Psychology.
Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, Department of Psychology.
Psychol Aging. 2014 Jun;29(2):236-249. doi: 10.1037/a0036187.
Aging-related changes occur for multiple domains of cognitive functioning. An accumulating body of research indicates that, rather than representing statistically independent phenomena, aging-related cognitive changes are moderately to strongly correlated across domains. However, previous studies have typically been conducted in age-heterogeneous samples over longitudinal time lags of 6 or more years, and have failed to consider whether results are robust to a comprehensive set of controls. Capitalizing on 3-year longitudinal data from the Lothian Birth Cohort of 1936, we took a longitudinal narrow age cohort approach to examine cross-domain cognitive change interrelations from ages 70 to 73 years. We fit multivariate latent difference score models to factors representing visuospatial ability, processing speed, memory, and crystallized ability. Changes were moderately interrelated, with a general factor of change accounting for 47% of the variance in changes across domains. Change interrelations persisted at close to full strength after controlling for a comprehensive set of demographic, physical, and medical factors including educational attainment, childhood intelligence, physical function, APOE genotype, smoking status, diagnosis of hypertension, diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, and diagnosis of diabetes. Thus, the positive manifold of aging-related cognitive changes is highly robust in that it can be detected in a narrow age cohort followed over a relatively brief longitudinal period, and persists even after controlling for many potential confounders.
认知功能的多个领域都会发生与衰老相关的变化。越来越多的研究表明，与衰老相关的认知变化并不是统计学上独立的现象，而是在各个领域之间存在中度到高度的相关性。然而，以前的研究通常是在年龄异质的样本中进行的，纵向时间跨度超过 6 年，并且没有考虑到结果是否对一整套控制因素具有稳健性。利用 1936 年洛锡安出生队列的 3 年纵向数据，我们采用纵向窄年龄队列方法，从 70 岁到 73 岁的年龄来研究跨领域认知变化的相互关系。我们拟合了代表视空间能力、加工速度、记忆和晶体智力的因素的多变量潜在差异得分模型。变化之间存在中度的相互关系，变化的一般因素占跨领域变化方差的 47%。在控制了一系列全面的人口统计学、身体和医学因素（包括教育程度、儿童智力、身体功能、APOE 基因型、吸烟状况、高血压诊断、心血管疾病诊断和糖尿病诊断）后，变化之间的相互关系仍然接近完全强度。因此，与衰老相关的认知变化的积极流形具有高度稳健性，因为它可以在相对较短的纵向时间内检测到在狭窄年龄队列中的个体，并且即使在控制了许多潜在的混杂因素后仍然存在。
