Systemic racism can have broad impacts on health in ethnoracial minorities. One way is by suppressing socioeconomic status (SES) levels through barriers to achieve higher income, wealth, and educational attainment. Additionally, the weathering hypothesis proposes that the various stressful adversities faced by ethnoracial minorities lead to greater wear and tear on the body, known as allostatic load. In the present study, we extend these ideas to cognitive health in a tri-ethnic sample of young adults—when cognition and brain health is arguably at their peak. Specifically, we tested competing mediation models that might shed light on how two key factors caused by systemic racism—SES and perceived stress—intersect to explain ethnoracial disparities in cognition. We found evidence for partial mediation via a pathway from SES to stress on episodic memory, working memory capacity, and executive function in Black Americans relative to non-Hispanic White Americans. Additionally, we found that stress partially mediated the ethnoracial disparities in working memory updating for lower SES Black and Hispanic Americans relative to non-Hispanic White Americans, showing that higher SES can sometimes reduce the negative effects stress has on these disparities in some cognitive domains. Overall, these findings suggest that multiple pathways exist in which lower SES creates a stressful environment to impact ethnoracial disparities cognition. These pathways differ depending on the specific ethnoracial category and cognitive domain. The present results may offer insight into strategies to help mitigate the late-life risk for neurocognitive disorders in ethnoracial minorities.
The reliable change index (RCI) is a commonly used method for interpreting change in neuropsychological test scores over time. However, the RCI is a psychometric method that, to date, has not been validated against neuroanatomical changes. Longitudinal neuroimaging and neuropsychological data from baseline and one-year follow-up visits were retrieved from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database. The RCI was used to identify participants showing reliable decline on memory (ADNI-Mem; N = 450) and executive functioning (ADNI-EF; N = 456) factor scores. For each factor score, two groups (reliable change vs. no reliable change) were matched on potential baseline confounding variables. Longitudinal neuroanatomical data were analysed using tensor-based morphometry. Analysis revealed that reliable change on ADNI-Mem was associated with atrophy in the medial temporal cortex, limbic cortex, temporal lobe and some regions of the parietal lobe. Similar atrophy patterns were found for reliable change on ADNI-EF, except that atrophy extended to the frontal lobe and the atrophy was more extensive and of higher magnitude. The current study not only validates clinical usage of the RCI with neuroanatomical evidence of associated underlying brain change but also suggests patterns of likely brain atrophy when reliable cognitive decline is detected.Dementia is a prevalent disorder permeating the older adult population throughout the world. Over 35 million older adults are affected by dementia, and this number is estimated to surge to 65 million in 2030 and 115 million in 2050 (Prince et al., 2013). The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer's disease (AD), affecting approximately 33.9 million people worldwide and 5.3 million people in the United States (Brookmeyer, Johnson, Ziegler-Graham, & Arrighi, 2007). AD is described as causing an insidious decline in cognition, as it gradually affects the brain and, consequently, cognitive functioning. In
Depressogenic traits are personality dispositions that put individuals at a higher risk for developing depression. Measured by the Depressive Experience Questionnaire (DEQ), self-criticism and dependency are two personality traits that are closely related to depression. The current study explored humor styles as potential mediating factors in the relationship between depressogenic traits and depression. Study 1: Given that the traditional Chinese version of the DEQ had not been validated psychometrically, we first conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to determine the most appropriate DEQ scoring system among the existing ones. The results indicated that the reconstructed DEQ had the best psychometric properties for the traditional Chinese version of the DEQ. Study 2: The potential mediating effect of humor styles in the relationship between depressogenic traits and depression was examined. Results showed that two benign humor styles, affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles, mediated the relationship between depressogenic traits (both self-criticism and dependency) and depression. The mediational strength was stronger for self-enhancing than for affiliative humor style. Malign humor styles, aggressive and self-defeating humor styles, did not emerge as mediators. Research and clinical implications for the findings were discussed.
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