Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — A new study revealed that some personality traits may play a major role in determining whether people develop mild cognitive impairment later in life.
The study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology on Monday, reported that those who are more aware and open to others avoid developing mild cognitive impairment earlier, while those with higher levels of neuroticism have an increased risk of deterioration. cognitive.
“Personality traits reflect relatively stable patterns of thinking and behavior, which may cumulatively influence the practice of healthy and unhealthy behaviors, and thinking patterns along the way,” Tomiko Yoneda, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral student in psychology at Victoria University, Canada, said in a statement. life of the individual.
She noted, “The accumulation of experiences during the life course may contribute to exposure to certain diseases or disorders, such as mild cognitive impairment, or cause individual differences in the ability to tolerate age-related neurological changes.”
Dr. Richard Isaacson, director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic in the Center for Brain Health at the Schmidt School of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University in America, said that while this link appears in clinical practice, it is difficult to determine the causal conundrum.
Isaacson, who was not involved in the study, added that “certain traits may increase the risk of infection, as a result of constant behaviors in the life path that predispose a person to develop cognitive decline or Alzheimer’s disease, or there may be a role related to symptoms of early disease.”
“Neuroticism is the first trait that specifically comes to mind, and previous meta-analyses have shown this as well. Rumination and anxiety are linked to smaller brain volumes,” he told CNN. “It’s unclear if stress and neuroinflammation are causing this,” he told CNN. .and there’s really no biomarker for this, so it’s hard to prove.”
The main character traits
The study analyzed the personality of nearly 2,000 people who participated in the Rush Memory and Aging Project, a longitudinal study of older adults in Chicago that began in 1997. The study examined the role that three key personality traits play in how people overcome cognitive decline later in life. , namely: Consciousness, openness to the other, and neuroticism.
Neuroticism is a personality trait that affects how well a person handles stress. Neurotic people approach life with anxiety, anger, and self-awareness, seeing minor frustrations as overwhelming and hopelessly threatening.
Conscientious people have high levels of self-discipline, orderliness, and focus on purpose, Yoneda said, while more extroverted people have an enthusiasm for life—and are often assertive and friendly.
Yoneda noted that people with a high score in the conscientious trait category or a low neurotic score were significantly less likely to have mild cognitive impairment during the study, detailing that every six additional points a person scores on the conscientious scale “are associated with a lower risk of developing mild cognitive impairment.” Transition from normal cognitive functioning to moderate cognitive impairment by 22%.
The study indicated that those who are more open and have a greater social trait, may live an extra year free of dementia. It also enhances their ability to restore normal cognitive function following receiving a previous diagnosis of MCI, possibly due to the benefits of socialization.
However, the higher the levels of neuroticism, the greater the risk of cognitive decline. Yoneda noted that every seven additional points on this scale were “associated with a 12% increased risk,” which may translate to at least a year’s loss of cognitive health.
This study is not the first to show the relationship between personality and brain function. Previous research has shown that people who are more open to experiences, more conscientious and less neurotic, do better cognitively on tests and experience lower cognitive decline over time.