| Poster | Poster Session 05 Program Schedule
02/15/2024
02:30 pm - 03:45 pm
Room: Shubert Complex (Posters 1-60)
Poster Session 05: Neuropsychiatry | Addiction/Dependence | Stress/Coping | Emotional/Social Processes
Final Abstract #54
Preliminary Findings of Sex Differences in the Association between Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Executive Functioning among Sedentary Older Adults with Remitted Late-life Depression
Caleb Keys, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, United States
Abeera Ahmad, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, United States
Swathi Gujral, University of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine, Pittsburgh, United States
Category: Aging
Keyword 1: aging (normal)
Keyword 2: depression
Keyword 3: neuropsychological assessment
Objective:
Older adults with remitted late-life depression have a high prevalence of persistent executive impairment and are at double the risk for progression to dementia relative to the general older adult population. Cardiorespiratory fitness is a protective factor for preserving cognitive and brain health among older adults, though there is moderate inter-individual variability in the extent to which fitness benefits cognitive and brain aging. We need to better understand how cardiorespiratory fitness may protect against residual executive impairment in remitted late-life depression and begin to explore potential moderators of the association between fitness and executive functioning, such as biological sex.
Participants and Methods:
The present study used baseline data from an ongoing lifestyle intervention trial in sedentary older adults (60+ years; mean age=68.5 years) with remitted late-life depression (n=22). Cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2 peak) was assessed using a maximal cardiopulmonary exercise test on a treadmill, a gold standard measure of aerobic capacity. Non-parametric correlations (Spearman’s rho) were examined between cardiorespiratory fitness and executive functioning performance on the Neuropsychological Assessment Battery (NAB) Executive Functioning Battery and the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery (Dimensional Card Sort, Pattern Comparison, List Sorting, Flanker). Performance on the cognitive screening measure, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), was used as a measure of global cognition and efficiency on the NAB Numbers and Letters task part A was used to assess processing speed. Sex-stratified analyses were conducted to explore potential sex differences in the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and executive functioning markers (n=14 females, n=8 males) among older adults with remitted late-life depression.
Results:
In the overall sample (n=22), we observed a positive association of fitness with global cognition (MoCA total score r= 0.48, p=0.02) and processing speed (NAB Numbers and Letters A efficiency r=0.64, p = 0.001). No other fitness-cognitive associations were significant. In sex-stratified analyses, within women, we observed a large positive association between fitness and executive performance on three NIH toolbox cognitive measures (Dimensional Card Sort r=0.76, p=0.01; Flanker r=0.79, p=0.007, Pattern Comparison r=0.74, p=0.01). We did not observe significant associations between fitness and executive measures on the NIH Toolbox in men (Dimensional Card Sort r=-0.31, p=0.54; Flanker r=0.49, p=0.32, Pattern Comparison r=0.55, p=0.26). We did not observe significant associations between fitness and executive functioning assessed using the NAB executive functioning tests in men, women, or the overall sample (Mazes, Categories, Judgment, Word Generation).
Conclusions:
In a preliminary exploration of sex differences in the association between cardiorespiratory fitness and executive functioning among depressed older adults, we only observed fitness-executive functioning associations in women but not in men. Fitness-executive functioning associations in women had a large effect size, even in this small sample. Fitness was associated with better global cognition and processing speed in both men and women.
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