Aging
Navigate
Submit an Article
Research Paper|Volume 11, Issue 17|pp 6792—6804

Stress adaptation in older adults with and without cognitive impairment: an fMRI pattern-based similarity analysis

Xixi Wang1, Kathi L. Heffner2,4, Mia Anthony2, Feng Lin2,3,5,6,7
  • 1Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14642, USA
  • 2School of Nursing, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14642, USA
  • 3Department of Psychiatry, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14642, USA
  • 4Department of Medicine, Division of Geriatrics and Aging, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14642, USA
  • 5Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14642, USA
  • 6Department of Neuroscience, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14642, USA
  • 7Department of Neurology, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14642, USA
Received: April 12, 2019Accepted: August 12, 2019Published: September 3, 2019
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.102204

Copyright © 2019 Wang et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Background: The capacity to adapt to environmental stressors is essential for older adults’ health and well-being. It is unclear how cognitive impairment may disrupt the capacity. Here we examined the relationship between self-perceptions of stress and the neurobiological response to a laboratory model of stress adaptation in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), a group at high risk for dementia.

Results: aMCI group and cognitively healthy controls did not differ in neurobiological acute stress recovery (indexed by similarity in neural patterns at baseline and after recovery from cognitive challenges). However, compared to controls, aMCI group had significantly lower scores on PSS-PW. Notably, higher PSS-PW was associated with greater acute neural recovery in controls, but not aMCI.

Methods: We assessed self-perceptions of stress adaptation with the Perceived Stress Scale subscales, measuring perceived helplessness (i.e., negatively worded items, PSS-NW) and self-efficacy (i.e., positively worded items, PSS-PW) in response to stress. At a subsequent laboratory fMRI visit, we indexed neurobiological stress adaptation by assessing and comparing functional network connectivity at baseline and immediately following, and after recovery from, cognitive challenges.

Conclusions: Studying stress adaptation in aMCI may shed light on pathways that contribute to the onset and progress of cognitive deterioration in aging.