As people age, worries about declining cognitive abilities become common, often leading to doctor visits and tests, resulting in a diagnosis of subjective cognitive complaints (SCC).
While some individuals with SCC progress to mild cognitive impairment and dementia, many do not.
A recent study conducted by UNSW Sydney’s Center for Healthy Brain Aging (CHeBA) seeks to understand the genetic and environmental factors that contribute to SCC.
Research Methodology: Twin Study and Factors Examined
The research, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, analyzed over 300 twin pairs from CHeBA’s Older Australian Twins Study.
The study aimed to understand the correlations between SCC, memory ability, personality type, and mood.
The value of studying twins lies in their shared genetics; identical twins share 100% of their genes, while non-identical twins share about 50%.
Findings: Interplay of Genetic and Environmental Factors in SCC
The findings suggested that SCC is moderately heritable, indicating that genetic factors partly influence these complaints.
When memory performance, mood, and personality were factored in, SCC appeared to be linked to memory performance through a genetic pathway and to mood via an environmental pathway.
Personality seemed to affect SCC through mood, rather than having a direct influence.
Despite these correlations, memory performance, mood, and personality only accounted for some of the genetic factors underlying SCC.
The researchers also struggled to differentiate between individuals whose SCC were due to poor memory performance and those due to low mood.
Conclusions: Understanding SCC and its Implications
CHeBA’s co-director, Professor Perminder Sachdev, emphasized that memory concerns aren’t necessarily an early sign of impending dementia and that understanding why SCC occur requires more research.
He stressed that attention should be paid to low mood, a common factor in SCC, and that individuals should understand that memory issues can be attributed to factors other than impending dementia, such as stress or inattention.
If you care about dementia, please read studies about how the Mediterranean diet could protect your brain health, and Vitamin B supplements could help reduce dementia risk.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies that cranberries could help boost memory, and these antioxidants could help reduce dementia risk.
The study was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
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