Department of Neuroscience, Functional Pharmacology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
Department of Neuroscience, Functional Pharmacology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2019 Mar;101:167-174. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2018.11.014. Epub 2018 Nov 12.
A growing body of research has linked personality traits to cognitive performance. This relationship might play a role in the predisposition toward obesity. Neuroticism and executive function seem to be particularly involved, and reduced executive function has been proposed to underlie the association of neuroticism with sedentary behaviors and fatty food consumption. Despite the link between neuroticism, cognitive functions and obesity has been largely reported, conflicting evidence exists. Moreover, information regarding other cognitive domains, and studies on overweight individuals, are still scarce.
We examined cross-sectional associations of neuroticism and cognitive function with overweight and obesity in a sample of 170 310 individuals from the UK Biobank cohort, adjusted for sociodemographic and life-style factors. Measures on fluid intelligence (FI) (reasoning ability), trail making test (TMT) (executive function), numeric memory test and pairs matching (PM) task (short-term memory) were extracted from the database. Correlations between neuroticism and cognitive performance were explored. Moreover, we investigated whether neuroticism and executive function could predict BMI variability over time.
Reduced FI and short-term memory were associated with overweight and obesity, while reduced executive function was associated with obesity but not with overweight. Low neuroticism was associated with being overweight rather than lean or obese independently of gender and life-style. Furthermore, baseline neuroticism scores could predict BMI variations over 5-10 years follow-up, and high neuroticism correlated with lower cognitive performance.
Lower cognitive performance is associated with both overweight and obesity, except for executive function, which was only related to obesity. Neuroticism correlated with performance on most of the cognitive domains tested, supporting the link between personality and cognition. Our findings also support the role of neuroticism in leading to greater weight variability over time, rather than to overweight/obesity itself.
越来越多的研究将人格特质与认知表现联系起来。这种关系可能在肥胖倾向中起作用。神经质和执行功能似乎特别相关，并且据推测，执行功能下降是神经质与久坐行为和高脂肪食物消费相关的基础。尽管神经质、认知功能与肥胖之间的联系已被广泛报道，但存在相互矛盾的证据。此外，关于其他认知领域的信息以及超重个体的研究仍然很少。
我们在 UK Biobank 队列的 170310 名个体中，检验了神经质和认知功能与超重和肥胖的横断面关联，这些个体的调整因素包括社会人口统计学和生活方式因素。从数据库中提取了流体智力（FI）（推理能力）、连线测试（TMT）（执行功能）、数字记忆测试和配对匹配（PM）任务（短期记忆）的测量值。探索了神经质与认知表现之间的相关性。此外，我们还研究了神经质和执行功能是否可以预测 BMI 的随时间变化的可变性。
FI 和短期记忆下降与超重和肥胖相关，而执行功能下降与肥胖相关，但与超重无关。低神经质与超重相关，而与消瘦或肥胖无关，且与性别和生活方式无关。此外，基线神经质分数可以预测 5-10 年随访期间的 BMI 变化，且高神经质与较低的认知表现相关。
较低的认知表现与超重和肥胖都相关，除了执行功能，它仅与肥胖相关。神经质与大多数测试的认知领域的表现相关，支持人格与认知之间的联系。我们的研究结果还支持神经质在导致体重随时间变化更大方面的作用，而不是超重/肥胖本身。
