Can Personality Protect Against Cognitive Decline in Aging? A 25 year Longitudinal Study of Experiential Openness, Neuroplasticity and Cognitive Aging
Author(s):
David J Sperbeck
Studies of neurocognition across the lifespan have demonstrated gradual declines among healthy adults in the domains of memory, problem-solving, sensory processing, executive functioning, and processing speed. However, recent advances in the field of personality neuroscience have discovered significant differences between and within individuals’ capacity to compensate for these differences, ultimately altering the degree and magnitude of neurocognitive decline in the aging process.
Experiential Openness (EO), first proposed by Costa and McCrae in their five-factor model of personality has been found to be positively related to preserved autobiographical memory recall and reminiscing activity. Additionally, Ihle, Zuber, Gouveia, et. al. found that EO adults engaged in more leisure time activities which served to mediate smaller cognitive declines in executive functioning relative to their Experientially Closed (EC) counterparts.
The current study recruited an initial cohort of 220 well-educated and physically healthy adults aged 55-57 who volunteered to complete a total of six one-hour neurocognitive testing sessions (i.e.once every five years) over a 25 year period. Participants initially completed the NEO Personality Inventory. Cognitive testing included standardized measures of immediate and incidental memory as well as executive functioning.
Results reflected that EO participants demonstrated better preservation of executive functioning, incidental memory, and immediate memory functions into late adulthood over their EC counterparts. Furthermore, although both personality groups eventually displayed cognitive decline into their late 70’s and 80’s, EC personalities displayed steeper rates of decline (i.e. slope gradients) at younger ages.
These findings mirror prior longitudinal and cross-sectional studies which employed a variety of different cognitive measures across varying testing ages and lend support to the notion that personality differences may account for preserved differentiation and differential preservation of neurocognition among non-demented persons. These findings suggest that personality traits which promote active and novel sensory engagement may necessarily stimulate hippocampal neurogenesis in older adults through the formation of new neuronal pathways. Understanding and recognizing these individual differences in critical areas of cognitive processing may prove essential to improving the functional capacities and quality of life for older persons.
