Adverse childhood environment and late-life cognitive functioning

Clinical studies suggest that childhood maltreatment may cause nervous system changes and consequent cognitive disorder. The persistence of this association in late-life is examined.

Cognitive functioning and childhood events were examined in 1282 persons over 65 years, taking into account proximal competing causes of poor cognitive performance.

Ninety one per cent experienced at least one adverse childhood event, of these 14.7% severe events. Sharing of parental problems and, for women, loss of a parent were associated with poorer verbal retrieval whereas being sent to a foster home or mistreatment by schoolmates was associated with poorer visuospatial memory. Severe abuse was associated with a lower risk of cognitive impairment on some tests suggesting a resilience factor. Positive childhood environment was protective although only for non-carriers of the ApoE ε4 allele on the central executive task.

Some adverse childhood events continue to have a negative effect on later-life cognitive performance, while some more severe acute events may have the opposite effect, underlying the necessity to consider events individually and not as global test scores.