Is intraindividual reaction time variability an independent cognitive predictor of mortality in old age? Findings from the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study.

Intraindividual variability of reaction time (IIVRT), a proposed cognitive marker of neurobiological disturbance, increases in old age, and has been associated with dementia and mortality. The extent to which IIVRT is an independent predictor of mortality, however, is unclear. This study investigate...

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Main Authors: Nicole A Kochan, David Bunce, Sarah Pont, John D Crawford, Henry Brodaty, Perminder S Sachdev
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2017-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0181719&type=printable
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author Nicole A Kochan
David Bunce
Sarah Pont
John D Crawford
Henry Brodaty
Perminder S Sachdev
author_facet Nicole A Kochan
David Bunce
Sarah Pont
John D Crawford
Henry Brodaty
Perminder S Sachdev
author_sort Nicole A Kochan
collection DOAJ
description Intraindividual variability of reaction time (IIVRT), a proposed cognitive marker of neurobiological disturbance, increases in old age, and has been associated with dementia and mortality. The extent to which IIVRT is an independent predictor of mortality, however, is unclear. This study investigated the association of IIVRT and all-cause mortality while accounting for cognitive level, incident dementia and biomedical risk factors in 861 participants aged 70-90 from the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study. Participants completed two computerised reaction time (RT) tasks (76 trials in total) at baseline, and comprehensive medical and neuropsychological assessments every 2 years. Composite RT measures were derived from the two tasks-the mean RT and the IIVRT measure computed from the intraindividual standard deviation of the RTs (with age and time-on-task effects partialled out). Consensus dementia diagnoses were made by an expert panel of clinicians using clinical criteria, and mortality data were obtained from a state registry. Cox proportional hazards models estimated the association of IIVRT and mean RT with survival time over 8 years during which 191 (22.2%) participants died. Greater IIVRT but not mean RT significantly predicted survival time after adjusting for age, sex, global cognition score, cardiovascular risk index and apolipoprotein ɛ4 status. After excluding incident dementia cases, the association of IIVRT with mortality changed very little. Our findings suggest that greater IIVRT uniquely predicts shorter time to death and that lower global cognition and prodromal dementia in older individuals do not explain this relationship.
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spelling doaj-art-1e3c54ffaee64a2ea00fa606232f98432025-08-20T02:45:57ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032017-01-01128e018171910.1371/journal.pone.0181719Is intraindividual reaction time variability an independent cognitive predictor of mortality in old age? Findings from the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study.Nicole A KochanDavid BunceSarah PontJohn D CrawfordHenry BrodatyPerminder S SachdevIntraindividual variability of reaction time (IIVRT), a proposed cognitive marker of neurobiological disturbance, increases in old age, and has been associated with dementia and mortality. The extent to which IIVRT is an independent predictor of mortality, however, is unclear. This study investigated the association of IIVRT and all-cause mortality while accounting for cognitive level, incident dementia and biomedical risk factors in 861 participants aged 70-90 from the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study. Participants completed two computerised reaction time (RT) tasks (76 trials in total) at baseline, and comprehensive medical and neuropsychological assessments every 2 years. Composite RT measures were derived from the two tasks-the mean RT and the IIVRT measure computed from the intraindividual standard deviation of the RTs (with age and time-on-task effects partialled out). Consensus dementia diagnoses were made by an expert panel of clinicians using clinical criteria, and mortality data were obtained from a state registry. Cox proportional hazards models estimated the association of IIVRT and mean RT with survival time over 8 years during which 191 (22.2%) participants died. Greater IIVRT but not mean RT significantly predicted survival time after adjusting for age, sex, global cognition score, cardiovascular risk index and apolipoprotein ɛ4 status. After excluding incident dementia cases, the association of IIVRT with mortality changed very little. Our findings suggest that greater IIVRT uniquely predicts shorter time to death and that lower global cognition and prodromal dementia in older individuals do not explain this relationship.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0181719&type=printable
spellingShingle Nicole A Kochan
David Bunce
Sarah Pont
John D Crawford
Henry Brodaty
Perminder S Sachdev
Is intraindividual reaction time variability an independent cognitive predictor of mortality in old age? Findings from the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study.
PLoS ONE
title Is intraindividual reaction time variability an independent cognitive predictor of mortality in old age? Findings from the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study.
title_full Is intraindividual reaction time variability an independent cognitive predictor of mortality in old age? Findings from the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study.
title_fullStr Is intraindividual reaction time variability an independent cognitive predictor of mortality in old age? Findings from the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study.
title_full_unstemmed Is intraindividual reaction time variability an independent cognitive predictor of mortality in old age? Findings from the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study.
title_short Is intraindividual reaction time variability an independent cognitive predictor of mortality in old age? Findings from the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study.
title_sort is intraindividual reaction time variability an independent cognitive predictor of mortality in old age findings from the sydney memory and ageing study
url https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0181719&type=printable
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