BIO

Isabel is a freshman from Wethersfield, CT. She is interested in pursuing a research career in the topics of age-related changes in cognition, Alzheimer’s Disease risk factors, and the impact of technology on brain structure and function.

The Effect of Sleep on Cognition in Aging Adults

Abstract

Background. Episodic memory and executive functioning are core components of human cognition that are necessary for recollection of events, focus, multi-tasking, and working memory. Sleep quality and age are both important correlates of cognitive functioning; however, their potential interactive effects on cognition are not well understood.
Methods. We completed secondary data analysis of the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) Wave 2 study (Mean Age = 54.52; N=1,255). Participant demographics and sleep quality were collected via survey, while cognition was assessed via a telephone cognitive assessment. We used hierarchical regression to evaluate whether poor sleep quality would have a greater negative impact on executive functioning and episodic memory in older adults compared to middle-aged adults and younger adults.
Results. Older age was significantly associated with poorer performance on measures of executive functioning and memory; however, there was no direct relationship between sleep quality and cognitive measures. There was also no significant interaction between sleep and age in either cognitive domain. However, there was a non-significant statistical trend for poor sleep quality to have a greater impact on the executive function of younger adults compared to older adults.
Conclusions. This study found that sleep quality was not associated with executive functioning or episodic memory regardless of age. This contradicts former literature, which indicates an association between sleep and cognition and age and cognition. Of note, participants were overall cognitively healthy at baseline, which may have limited our ability to detect a true effect.

Keywords: Aging, cognition, sleep