FC1: Psychosocial Stressors and their Association with Brain Aging

Abstract

Introduction: Recently researchers started investigating brain aging and what factors can influence the way our brains age. As it is unclear at this point whether psychosocial stressor influence brain aging, the aim of the study was to investigate the association between psychosocial stress and brain aging.

Methods: Data from the German population-based cohort Study of Health in Pomerania (N = 991; age range 20– 78 years) were used to calculate a total psychosocial stress score by combining sub-scores from five domains: stress related to the living situation, the occupational situation, the social situation, danger experiences, and emotions. Associations with brain aging, indicated by an MRI-derived score quantifying age-related brain atrophy, were estimated by using regression models adjusted for age, gender, education, diabetes, problematic alcohol consumption, smoking, and hypertension.

Results: High emotional stress came with a relative risk of 1.21 (CI95% = 1.04 – 1.41) for advanced brain aging in fully adjusted models. Mental health symptoms additionally influenced brain aging, as statistically significant interactions between emotional stress and mental health symptoms on advanced brain aging indicate.

Discussion: Among the psychosocial stressors that we investigated; emotional stress seems to be relevant regarding brain aging. More research is needed to explore the potential pathways.