| Poster | Poster Session 08 Program Schedule
02/16/2024
01:45 pm - 03:00 pm
Room: Shubert Complex (Posters 1-60)
Poster Session 08: Cognition | Cognitive Reserve Variables
Final Abstract #52
Effect of Smoking Status and Years of Education on Visuomotor Set-Shifting Performance Using the Trails Making B Test
Dorie-Mae Nicolas, Pickup Family Neurosciences Institute at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, Irvine, United States
Bradley Anderson, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, United States
Lauren Bennett, Pickup Family Neurosciences Institute at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, Irvine, United States
Category: Assessment/Psychometrics/Methods (Adult)
Keyword 1: cognitive functioning
Keyword 2: cognitive reserve
Keyword 3: substance abuse
Objective:
In 2020, approximately 30.8 million adults in the U.S. were current cigarette smokers and 16 million lived with a smoking-related disease. Smoking prevalence was higher among individuals with lower educational attainment, those who reside in rural areas, and have a household income of less than $35,000. Of these factors, educational attainment has been proven to serve as a protective factor against cognitive decline. Research has shown smoking is linked to smaller total and regional gray matter volumes and increased volume loss in subcortical white matter and grey matter nuclei. Loss of white and grey matter is associated with poorer performance across measures of executive functioning, working memory, and learning and memory. This study examines the relationship between smoking, educational attainment, and cognitive functioning in individuals diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, early Alzheimer’s Disease, and healthy control participants.
Participants and Methods:
The study cohort consisted of 138 individuals diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, early Alzheimer’s Disease, and control subjects who participated in the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) study between 2005 and 2011 in the ADNIGO phase. Visuomotor set shifting was measured via the Trails Making Test B Test. A simultaneous multiple linear regression analysis was used to assess the impact of smoking and years of education on performance on a measure of visuomotor set-shifting using R and RStudio version 3.6.3. The smoking variable was coded with smokers as the reference group.
Results:
A simultaneous multiple linear regression analysis was used to assess the impact of smoking and years of education on performance on visuomotor set-shifting. Overall, the optimal linear combination of smoking behavior and educational level did not account for a statistically significant amount of variance on a measure of visuomotor set-shifting, R2adj = 0.01, F(3,134) = 1.63, p > 0.05. Nonsmokers performed an average of 170 seconds better on a visuomotor task than the unweighted grand mean of time taken to complete the task, 95% CI [15.976, 325.678], p < 0.05. Education level, however, did not significantly impact predicting performance on a visuomotor task, p > 0.05. Specifically, as education level increases, performance on the Trails Making B Test increases by 6 seconds, holding smoking status constant, p > 0.05.
Conclusions:
While educational level was not a significant predictor of visuomotor set-shifting performance, smoking status was observed to negatively significantly impact performance across years of education, suggesting that nonsmokers perform significantly better than smokers. As such, targeted psychoeducation on the negative impact of smoking on cognitive functioning is crucial. Future research should assess the impact of number of years one smokes, age of smoking initiation (e.g., early versus late onset smoking initiation), and average number of cigarettes smoked per week on visuomotor set-shifting performance. Also, given the rate of current smokers, future research should tease apart the influence of different smoking modalities (e.g., traditional cigarettes, cigars, e-cigarettes) on visuomotor set-shifting performance.
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