Slower Decline in Processing Speed Is Associated with Familial Longevity

Cross-sectional analyses have associated familial longevity with better cognitive function and lower risk of cognitive impairment in comparison with individuals without familial longevity. The extent to which long-lived families also demonstrate slower rates of cognitive aging (i.e., change in cognition over time) is unknown. This study examined longitudinally collected data among 2 generations of the Long Life Family Study (LLFS) to compare rates of cognitive change across relatives and spouse controls.

We analyzed change in 6 neuropsychological test scores collected approximately 8 years apart among LLFS family members (n = 3,972) versus spouse controls (n = 1,092) using a Bayesian hierarchical model that included age, years of follow-up, sex, education, generation, and field center and all possible pairwise interactions.

At a mean age of 88 years at enrollment in the older generation and 60 years in the younger generation, LLFS family members performed better than their spouses on the Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST) and the Logical Memory test. At follow-up, family members in the younger generation also showed slower decline than spouses on the DSST, whereas rates of change of Digit Span, fluency, and memory were similar between the 2 groups.

Individuals in families with longevity appear to have better cognitive performance than their spouses for cognitive processes including psychomotor processing, episodic memory, and retrieval. Additionally, they demonstrate longer cognitive health spans with a slower decline on a multifactorial test of processing speed, a task requiring the integration of processes including organized visual search, working and incidental memory, and graphomotor ability. Long-lived families may be a valuable cohort for studying resilience to cognitive aging.