Center for Healthy Aging, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA.
Department of Communications, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2023 Apr 1;78(4):585-595. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbac158.
Deviations from normative trajectories of receptive language abilities following early life adversity (ELA) may indicate an elevated risk for advanced cognitive aging and related morbidities. Accelerated epigenetic aging at midlife may further identify those at greatest risk for advanced cognitive aging following ELA. We examined whether accelerations in epigenetic aging at midlife can identify those individuals who demonstrated the greatest change in receptive language abilities following ELA.
Data were drawn from the Female Growth and Development Study (n = 86), a 30-year prospective cohort study of females exposed to substantiated child sexual abuse (CSA), a severe ELA, and a non-CSA comparison condition. The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) measured receptive language abilities on 6 occasions from childhood to mid-life. Interindividual differences in PPVT-R trajectories were examined in relation to CSA exposure and across 5 independent measures of epigenetic age acceleration derived from first (Horvath DNAmAge, Hannum DNAmAge) and second (GrimAge, PhenoAge, Dunedin Pace of Aging) generation epigenetic clocks.
Quadratic growth models revealed that PPVT-R scores were significantly lower at age 25 for females exposed to CSA. Specifically, CSA exposed females had lower intercepts when GrimAge was accelerated and a smaller quadratic trend when PhenoAge was accelerated.
ELA is associated with significant differences in development of receptive language abilities with the most pronounced differences observed for females with accelerated epigenetic ages at mid-life. These findings suggest that epigenetic age acceleration could serve as an indicator of differences in cognitive aging and portend to later adulthood cognitive functioning.
在早期生活逆境（ELA）后，接受性语言能力偏离正常轨迹可能表明认知老化和相关疾病的风险增加。中年加速的表观遗传衰老可能进一步确定那些在 ELA 后认知老化风险最高的人。我们研究了中年加速的表观遗传衰老是否可以识别出那些在 ELA 后接受性语言能力变化最大的人。
数据来自女性生长发育研究（n=86），这是一项对暴露于证实的儿童性虐待（CSA）、严重 ELA 和非 CSA 对照条件下的女性进行的 30 年前瞻性队列研究。皮博迪图片词汇测验修订版（PPVT-R）在儿童期到中年期的 6 次测量接受性语言能力。在 CSA 暴露和从第一代（Horvath DNAmAge、Hannum DNAmAge）和第二代（GrimAge、PhenoAge、Dunedin 衰老速度）衍生的 5 个独立的表观遗传年龄加速测量中，检查了 PPVT-R 轨迹的个体间差异。
二次增长模型显示，CSA 暴露的女性在 25 岁时的 PPVT-R 得分明显较低。具体来说，当 GrimAge 加速时，CSA 暴露的女性截距较低，当 PhenoAge 加速时，二次趋势较小。
ELA 与接受性语言能力发展的显著差异有关，在中年加速表观遗传年龄的女性中观察到最明显的差异。这些发现表明，表观遗传年龄加速可以作为认知老化差异的指标，并预示着成年后期的认知功能。
