Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T06:24:25.725Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Midlife Neuroticism and the age of onset of Alzheimer's disease

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2008

N. Archer ,
R. G. Brown ,
S. Reeves ,
H. Nicholas ,
H. Boothby  and
S. Lovestone
N. Archer*
Affiliation:
Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Neurodegeneration Research, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, UK
R. G. Brown
Affiliation:
Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Neurodegeneration Research, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, UK
S. Reeves
Affiliation:
Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Neurodegeneration Research, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, UK
H. Nicholas
Affiliation:
Old Age Psychiatry, Farnham Road Hospital, Guildford, Surrey, UK
H. Boothby
Affiliation:
Old Age Psychiatry, Farnham Road Hospital, Guildford, Surrey, UK
S. Lovestone
Affiliation:
Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Neurodegeneration Research, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, UK
*
*Address for correspondence: Dr N. Archer, Section of Old Age Psychiatry, Box PO70, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF, UK. (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background

There may be important public health implications of increasing our knowledge of factors associated with age of dementia onset. The pre-morbid personality domain of Neuroticism constituted an interesting and theoretically plausible, yet uninvestigated, candidate for such an association. We aimed to examine whether midlife Neuroticism was associated with earlier age of onset of Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Method

This was a case–comparison study of 213 patients with probable AD. Detailed clinical information was collected for all patients including age of onset of dementia symptoms. One or two knowledgeable informants rated each patient's midlife personality retrospectively using the Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) questionnaire. The relationship between midlife Neuroticism and age of dementia onset was evaluated using both correlational analysis and backward linear regression analysis.

Results

Midlife Neuroticism predicted younger age of dementia onset in females but not in males. The association found in females was independent of pre-morbid history of affective disorder.

Conclusions

This finding and its potential mechanism warrant further investigation.

Keywords

Alzheimer's diseasedementiaNeuroticismpersonality
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , April 2009 , pp. 665 - 673
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aerssens, J, Raeymaekers, P, Lilienfeld, S, Geerts, H, Konings, F, Parys, W (2001). ApoE genotype: no influence on galantamine treatment efficacy nor on rate of decline in Alzheimer's disease. Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders 12, 69–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Andrews, G (1996). Comorbidity and the general neurotic syndrome. British Journal of Psychiatry 30, 76–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Archer, N, Brown, RG, Boothby, H, Foy, C, Nicholas, H, Lovestone, S (2006). The NEO-FFI is a reliable measure of premorbid personality in patients with probable Alzheimer's disease. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 21, 477–484.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Archer, N, Brown, RG, Reeves, SJ, Boothby, H, Nicholas, H, Foy, C, Williams, J, Lovestone, S (2007). Premorbid personality and behavioral and psychological symptoms in probable Alzheimer disease. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 15, 202–213.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brookmeyer, R, Gray, S, Kawas, C (1998). Projections of Alzheimer's disease in the United States and the public health impact of delaying disease onset. American Journal of Public Health 88, 1337–1342.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cannon-Spoor, HE, Levy, JA, Zubenko, GS, Zubenko, WW, Cohen, RM, Mirza, N, Putnam, K, Sunderland, T (2005). Effects of previous major depressive illness on cognition in Alzheimer disease patients. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 13, 312–318.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cicchetti, DV (1994). Guidelines, criteria and rules of thumb for evaluating normed and standardized assessment instruments in psychology. Psychological Assessment 6, 284–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, J (1960). A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales. Educational and Psychological Measurement 20, 37–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costa, PT, McCrae, RR (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) Professional Manual. Psychological Assessment Resources: Odessa, FL.Google Scholar
Crowe, M, Andel, R, Pedersen, NL, Fratiglioni, L, Gatz, M (2006). Personality and risk of cognitive impairment 25 years later. Psychology and Aging 21, 573–580.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Csernansky, JG, Dong, HX, Fagan, AM, Wang, L, Xiong, CJ, Holtzman, DM, Morris, JC (2006). Plasma cortisol and progression of dementia in subjects with Alzheimer-type dementia. American Journal of Psychiatry 163, 2164–2169.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Deckersbach, T, Miller, KK, Klibanski, A, Fischman, A, Dougherty, DD, Blais, MA, Herzog, DB, Rauch, SL (2006). Regional cerebral brain metabolism correlates of neuroticism and extraversion. Depression and Anxiety 23, 133–138.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Duara, R, Barker, WW, Lopez-Alberola, R, Loewenstein, DA, Grau, LB, Gilchrist, D, Sevush, S, St George-Hyslop, PH (1996). Alzheimer's disease: interaction of apolipoprotein E genotype, family history of dementia, gender, education, ethnicity, and age of onset. Neurology 46, 1575–1579.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Esiri, MM, Nagy, Z, Smith, MZ, Barnetson, L, Smith, AD (1999). Cerebrovascular disease and threshold for dementia in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. Lancet 354, 919–920.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ferri, CP, Prince, M, Brayne, C, Brodaty, H, Fratiglioni, L, Ganguli, M, Hall, K, Hasegawa, K, Hendrie, H, Huang, Y, Jorm, A, Mathers, C, Menezes, PR, Rimmer, E, Scazufca, M (2005). Global prevalence of dementia: a Delphi consensus study. Lancet 366, 2112–2117.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Field, A (2005). Discovering Statistics using SPSS. Sage Publications: London.Google Scholar
Folstein, MF, Folstein, SE, McHugh, PR (1975). ‘Mini-mental state’. A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. Journal of Psychiatric Research 12, 189–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foy, C, Nicholas, H, Hollingworth, P, Boothby, H, Williams, J, Brown, RG, Al-Sarraj, S, Lovestone, S (2007). Diagnosing Alzheimer's disease – non-clinicians and computerised algorithms together are as accurate as the best clinical practice. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 22, 1154–1163.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goodwin, RD, Cox, BJ, Clara, I (2006). Neuroticism and physical disorders among adults in the community: results from the National Comorbidity Survey. Journal of Behavioral Medicine 29, 229–238.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jorm, AF, Korten, AE, Henderson, AS (1987). The prevalence of dementia: a quantitative integration of the literature. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 76, 465–479.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kajantie, E, Phillips, DIW (2006). The effects of sex and hormonal status on the physiological response to acute psychosocial stress. Psychoneuroendocrinology 31, 151–178.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kiecolt-Glaser, JK (1999). Norman Cousins Memorial Lecture 1998. Stress, personal relationships, and immune function: health implications. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity 13, 61–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kiecolt-Glaser, JK, McGuire, L, Robles, TF, Glaser, R (2002). Emotions, morbidity, and mortality: new perspectives from psychoneuroimmunology. Annual Review of Psychology 53, 83–107.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kivipelto, M, Helkala, EL, Nissinen, A, Soininen, H, Tuomilehto, J (2002). Vascular risk factors, ApoE epsilon 4 allele, and gender and the risk of Alzheimer's disease: perspectives on prevention. Drug Development Research 56, 85–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knutson, B, Momenan, R, Rawlings, RR, Fong, GW, Hommer, D (2001). Negative association of neuroticism with brain volume ratio in healthy humans. Biological Psychiatry 50, 685–690.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McKhann, G, Drachman, D, Folstein, M, Katzman, R, Price, D, Stadlan, EM (1984). Clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: report of the NINCDS-ADRDA Work Group under the auspices of Department of Health and Human Services Task Force on Alzheimer's Disease. Neurology 34, 939–944.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Meins, W, Dammast, J (2000). Do personality traits predict the occurrence of Alzheimer's disease? International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 15, 120–124.3.0.CO;2-7>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nemetz, PN, Leibson, C, Naessens, JM, Beard, M, Kokmen, E, Annegers, JF, Kurland, LT (1999). Traumatic brain injury and time to onset of Alzheimer's disease: a population-based study. American Journal of Epidemiology 149, 32–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ott, A, Breteler, MM, van, HF, Claus, JJ, van der Cammen, TJ, Grobbee, DE, Hofman, A (1995). Prevalence of Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia: association with education. The Rotterdam study. British Medical Journal 310, 970–973.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Otte, C, Hart, S, Neylan, TC, Marmar, CR, Yaffe, K, Mohr, DC (2005). A meta-analysis of cortisol response to challenge in human aging: importance of gender. Psychoneuroendocrinology 30, 80–91.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pruessner, JC, Baldwin, MW, Dedovic, K, Renwick, R, Mahani, NK, Lord, C, Meaney, M, Lupien, S (2005). Self-esteem, locus of control, hippocampal volume, and cortisol regulation in young and old adulthood. Neuroimage 28, 815–826.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rozanski, A, Blumenthal, JA, Davidson, KW, Saab, PG, Kubzansky, L (2005). The epidemiology, pathophysiology and management of psychosocial risk factors in cardiac practice: the emerging field of behavioral cardiology. Journal of the American College of Cardiology 45, 637–651.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Snowdon, DA, Kemper, SJ, Mortimer, JA, Greiner, LH, Wekstein, DR, Markesbery, WR (1996). Linguistic ability in early life and cognitive function and Alzheimer's disease in late life: findings from the Nun Study. Journal of the American Medical Association 275, 528–532.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Socan, G, Bucik, V (1998). Relationship between speed of information-processing and two major personality dimensions – extraversion and neuroticism. Personality and Individual Differences 25, 35–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stelmack, RM, Houlihan, M, McGarry-Roberts, PA (1993). Personality, reaction time, and event-related potentials. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65, 399–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tang, MX, Jacobs, D, Stern, Y, Marder, K, Schofield, P, Gurland, B, Andrews, H, Mayeux, R (1996). Effect of oestrogen during menopause on risk and age at onset of Alzheimer's disease. Lancet 348, 429–432.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tsai, MS, Tangalos, EG, Petersen, RC, Smith, GE, Schaid, DJ, Kokmen, E, Ivnik, RJ, Thibodeau, SN (1994). Apolipoprotein E: risk factor for Alzheimer disease. American Journal of Human Genetics 54, 643–649.Google ScholarPubMed
Wilson, RS, Arnold, SE, Schneider, JA, Kelly, JF, Tang, YX, Bennett, DA (2006). Chronic psychological distress and risk of Alzheimer's disease in old age. Neuroepidemiology 27, 143–153.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilson, RS, Evans, DA, Bienias, JL, de Leon, CFM, Schneider, JA, Bennett, DA (2003). Proneness to psychological distress is associated with risk of Alzheimer's disease. Neurology 61, 1479–1485.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed