Blood Pressure Reactivity and Cognitive Function in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging

Brown, Jessica P.
Sollers, John J. III
Thayer, Julian F.
Zonderman, Alan B.
Waldstein, Shari R.

¹Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine
²Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University
³National Institute on Aging, Intramural Research Program, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, MD
⁴Department of Psychology, University of Maryland Baltimore County & Division of Gerontology, Department of Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine & Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center, Baltimore VA Medical Center

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jessica P. Brown, Department of Epidemiology & Preventive Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 655 West Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. E-mail: [email protected]

Health Psychology 28(5):p 641-646, September 2009. | DOI: 10.1037/a0015215

Objective:

Several blood pressure indexes of autonomic dysregulation, including stress-induced blood pressure responses (i.e., reactivity), have been associated previously with stroke, silent cerebrovascular disease, and decreased cognitive function.

Design:

The authors examined the cross-sectional relations among systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) reactivity and cognitive function in a sample of stroke- and dementia-free older adults (n = 73, 53% male, 72% Caucasian, mean age = 70.14 years) from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging.

Main Outcome Measures:

Age, education, baseline, and reactive blood pressure levels were regressed on cognitive test scores measuring the domains of attention, learning and memory, verbal functions/language skills, and perceptuo-motor speed. A Bonferroni correction was employed and results significant at the standard p < .05 level are discussed as marginally significant.

Results:

After adjustment for age, education, and resting blood pressure, greater SBP reactivity was associated with poorer performance on Digits Forward (R² = .110, p = .007) and greater DBP reactivity was associated with poorer performance on Digits Forward (R² = .124, p = .003) and the Boston Naming Test (R² = .118, p = .008); associations with DBP reactivity and Alpha Span (R² = .104; p = .019) and CVLT free recall short delay (R² = .066, p = .032) were marginally significant.

Conclusions:

Greater BP reactivity was associated with poorer performance on tests of attention, verbal memory, and confrontation naming. BP reactivity may be a biobehavioral risk factor for lowered levels of cognitive performance.