EARLY LIFE ADVERSITY, ALLOSTATIC LOAD, AND COGNITIVE FUNCTION AMONG MIDDLE-AGED AND OLDER ADULTS
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Early life adversity (ELA) is consequential for poor cognitive health in mid to late life. ELA is associated with higher allostatic load (AL), a biological indicator of physiological dysregulation due to cumulative wear-and-tear from chronic stress. Higher AL is also associated with poorer cognitive function across the lifespan. To date, however, a paucity of research has investigated AL as a mechanism through which ELA impacts cognition. Using cross-sectional data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) Study, the objective of this study was to investigate the mediating role of AL in the relationship between ELA and cognitive performance (global cognition, episodic memory, executive function) among middle-aged and older adults without cognitive impairment (n=1541, mean age=53±12, 53% female). ELA, including physical, emotional, and sexual experiences, was measured retrospectively using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. AL was composed of 20 biomarker proxies of neuroendocrine, metabolic, inflammatory, and cardiovascular systems, stratified by sex. Cognitive performance was evaluated using a battery of neuropsychological tests from the Brief Test of Adult Cognition by Telephone. Controlling for age, education, and ethnicity, AL significantly mediated the relationship between ELA and global cognition (ß=-0.01,95%CI[-0.02,-0.003]) and executive function (ß=-0.01,95%CI[-0.02,-0.003]) such that higher ELA was associated with higher AL, and higher AL was associated with poorer global cognition and executive function. No such effects were found for episodic memory. Consistent with the biopsychosocial lifespan model of cognitive aging, findings suggest that ELA may become biologically embedded over time to negatively impact cognitive function in later adulthood in a domain-specific manner.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".