Gender and Mild Cognitive Impairment Differences in the Link Between Adversity and Inflammation
Open Access
- Author:
- Capria, Anna
- Area of Honors:
- Biobehavioral Health
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Christopher Gerald Engeland, Thesis Supervisor
Kari Christine Kugler, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Mild cognitive impairment
MCI
Early life adversity
ELA
Inflammation - Abstract:
- The lifelong effects of early life adversity (ELA) are well documented and implicate important health outcomes for a growing elderly population. Prior studies indicate that ELA amplifies crosstalk between peripheral inflammation and neural circuitries, which subsequently results in chronic inflammation, and inflammatory states are differentially associated with MCI (Nusslock & Miller, 2016; Cherbuin et al., 2022). The present study predicts that mild cognitive impairment (MCI) has a moderating effect on ELA and inflammation. In addition, gender may be an important differentiating factor (Knight et al., 2022). For these reasons, it is critical to investigate the associations between gender and MCI in the link between ELA and inflammation. This study focused on participants in Bronx County, New York as part of the Einstein Aging Study, ages 70+, and examined this link in terms of multiple inflammatory markers: basal and stimulated cytokines IL-1β, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and C-reactive protein (CRP). The results of this study found significant correlations with regard to gender and MCI differences in the link between ELA and inflammation in later adulthood. Specifically, there was a significant positive correlation (correlation was significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)) between ELA and increased inflammatory markers for men, namely IL-6 (r = .24, p = .04), IL-8 (r = .228, p = .046), and stimulated IL-1β (r = .25, p = .04), but not women. Participants who were determined to be No-MCI (“normal cognition”) showed a significant correlation between a greater number of adverse experiences and higher IL-6 (r = .16, p = .04), and those with more severe adverse experiences showed higher CRP (r = .16, p = .04). No significant correlations were found for participants with No-MCI when gender was separately examined. Participants with MCI showed a significant correlation between a greater number of adverse experiences and lower TNF-α (r = -.28, p = .03). When gender was analyzed separately, for men with MCI, there was a significant positive correlation between adverse experiences and increased levels of inflammatory markers, namely IL-4 (r = .62, p = .008) and CRP (r = .54, p = .02), and men with MCI who had more severe adverse experiences also showed higher CRP (r = .59, p = .01). Interestingly, for women with MCI, adverse experiences were correlated with decreased levels of IL-1β (r = -.41, p = .02), and TNF-α (r = -.33, p = .04), and more severe adverse experiences were correlated with lower levels of stimulated IL-1β (r = -.40, p = .02). This study adds to the existing literature on the associations between ELA and inflammation, including important differences in inflammatory response patterns based on gender. A prior study by Knight and colleagues (2022) may provide an explanation for the gender differences identified in the present study. That prior cross-sectional and longitudinal study determined that negative psychological states were negatively associated with ex vivo LPS-stimulated cytokine responses for women, but positively associated for men (Knight et al., 2022). The present study further supports the importance of considering gender as a factor in health research.