Relational memory is associated with academic achievement in preadolescent children

Asthma and Memory Function in Children

Importance

Asthma is a chronic respiratory disease affecting approximately 5 million children in the US. Rodent models of asthma indicate memory deficits, but little is known about whether asthma alters children's memory development.

Objective

To assess whether childhood asthma is associated with lower memory abilities in children.

Design, Setting, and Participants

This cohort study used observational data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, a multisite longitudinal investigation that began enrollment in 2015. Approximately 11 800 children aged 9 to 10 years were enrolled at baseline with follow-up at 1 and 2 years. Participants were selected based on exposures described subsequently to determine longitudinal and cross-sectional associations between asthma and memory. Data were analyzed from Month year to Month year.

Exposures

Asthma was determined from parent reports. For the longitudinal analysis, children were selected if they had asthma at baseline and at the 2-year follow-up (earlier childhood onset), at the 2-year follow-up only (later childhood onset), or no history of asthma. For the cross-sectional analysis, children were selected if they had asthma at any time point, or no history of asthma. The comparison group of children with asthma history was matched on demographic and health covariates for each analysis.

Main Outcomes and Measures

The primary outcome was episodic memory. Secondary outcomes included processing speed, inhibition and attention.

Results

Four hundred seventy-four children were included in the longitudinal analysis (earlier childhood onset: 135 children; mean [SD] age, 9.90 [0.63] years; 76 [56%] male; 53 [28%] Black, 29 [21%] Hispanic or Latino, and 91 [48%] White; later childhood onset: 102 children; mean [SD] age 9.88 [0.59] years; 54 [53%] female; 22 [17%] Black, 19 [19%] Hispanic or Latino, and 83 [63%] White; comparison: 237 children; mean [SD] age, 9.89 [0.59] years; 121 [51%] male; 47 [15%] Black, 48 [20%] Hispanic or Latino, and 194 [62%] White). Children with earlier onset of asthma exhibited lower rates of longitudinal memory improvements relative to the comparison group (β = -0.17; 95% CI, -0.28 to -0.05; P = .01). Two thousand sixty-two children were selected for the cross-sectional analysis (with asthma: 1031 children; mean [SD] age, 11.99 [0.66] years; 588 [57%] male; 360 [27%] Black, 186 [18%] Hispanic or Latino, and 719 [54%] White; without asthma: 1031 children; mean [SD] age 12.00 [0.66] years; 477 [54%] female; 273 [21%] Black, 242 [23%] Hispanic or Latino, and 782 [59%] White). Children with asthma (1031 children) showed lower scores on episodic memory (β = -0.09; 95% CI, -0.18 to -0.01; P = .04), processing speed (β = -0.13; 95% CI, -0.22 to -0.03; P = .01), and inhibition and attention (β = -0.11; 95% CI, -0.21 to -0.02; P = .02).

Conclusions and Relevance

In this cohort study, asthma was associated with memory difficulties in children, which may be more severe if asthma onset is earlier in childhood and may extend to executive function abilities.

The influence of categorical stimuli on relational memory binding

Binding of arbitrary information into distinct memory representations that can be used to guide behavior is a hallmark of relational memory. What is and is not bound into a memory representation and how those things influence the organization of that representation remain topics of interest. While some information is intentionally and effortfully bound-often the information that is consistent with task goals or expectations about what information may be required later-other information appears to be bound automatically. The present set of experiments sought to investigate whether spatial memory would be systematically influenced by the presence and absence of distinct categories of stimuli on a spatial reconstruction task. In this task, participants must learn multiple item-location bindings and place each item back in its studied location after a short delay. Across three experiments, participants made significantly more within-category errors (i.e., misassigning one item to the location of a different item from the same category) than between-category errors (i.e., misassigning one item to the location of an item from a different category) when categories were perceptually or semantically distinct. These data reveal that category information contributed to the organization of the memory representation and influenced spatial reconstruction performance. Together, these results suggest that categorical information can influence memory organization, and not always to the benefit of overall task performance.

Episodic and prospective memory difficulties in 13-year-old children born very preterm

OBJECTIVES

Children born very preterm (VP) are susceptible to a range of cognitive impairments, yet the effects of VP birth on long-term, episodic, and prospective memory remains unclear. This study examined episodic and prospective memory functioning in children born VP compared with their term-born counterparts at 13 years.

METHOD

VP (n = 81: born <30 weeks' gestation) and term (n = 26) groups were aged between 12 and 14 years. Children completed: (i) standardized verbal and visuospatial episodic memory tests; and (ii) an experimental time- and event-based prospective memory test that included short-term (within assessment session) and long-term (up to 1-week post-session) tasks. Parents completed a questionnaire assessing memory functions in everyday life.

RESULTS

The VP group performed worse on all measures of verbal and visuospatial episodic memory than the term group. While there were no group differences in event-based or long-term prospective memory, the VP group performed worse on time-based and short-term prospective memory tasks than term-born counterparts. Parents of children born VP reported more everyday memory difficulties than parents of children born at term, with parent-ratings indicating significantly elevated rates of everyday memory challenges in children born VP.

CONCLUSIONS

Children born VP warrant long-term surveillance, as challenges associated with VP birth include memory difficulties at 13 years. This study highlights the need for greater research and clinical attention into childhood functional memory outcomes.

Socioeconomic disadvantage and episodic memory ability in the ABCD sample: Contributions of hippocampal subregion and subfield volumes

Socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with volumetric differences in stress-sensitive neural structures, including the hippocampus, and deficits in episodic memory. Rodent studies provide evidence that memory deficits arise via stress-related structural differences in hippocampal subdivisions; however, human studies have only provided limited evidence to support this notion. We used a sample of 10,695 9-13-year-old participants from two timepoints of the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study to assess whether socioeconomic disadvantage relates to episodic memory performance through hippocampal volumes. We explored associations among socioeconomic disadvantage, measured via the Area Deprivation Index (ADI), concurrent subregion (anterior, posterior) and subfield volumes (CA1, CA3, CA4/DG, subiculum), and episodic memory, assessed via the NIH Toolbox Picture Sequence Memory Test at baseline and 2-year follow-up (Time 2). Results showed that higher baseline ADI related to smaller concurrent anterior, CA1, CA4/DG, and subiculum volumes and poorer Time 2 memory performance controlling for baseline memory. Moreover, anterior, CA1, and subiculum volumes mediated the longitudinal association between the ADI and memory. Results suggest that greater socioeconomic disadvantage relates to smaller hippocampal subregion and subfield volumes and less age-related improvement in memory. These findings shed light on the neural mechanisms linking socioeconomic disadvantage and cognitive ability in childhood.

The Role of Chronic Physical Activity in Alleviating the Detrimental Relationship of Childhood Obesity on Brain and Cognition

Childhood obesity and its negative relation with children’s brain health has become a growing health concern. Over the last decade, literature has indicated that physical activity attenuates cognitive impairment associated with obesity and excess adiposity in children. However, there is no comprehensive review that considers the extent to which these factors affect different domains of cognition. This narrative review comprehensively summarizes behavioral, neuroimaging, and neuroelectric findings associated with chronic physical activity and fitness on brain and cognition in childhood obesity. Based on the literature reviewed, increased adiposity has a demonstrated relationship with neurocognitive health via mechanisms triggered by central inflammation and insulin resistance, with the most pronounced decrements observed for cognitive domains that are prefrontal- and hippocampal-dependent. Fortunately, physical activity, especially interventions enhancing aerobic fitness and motor coordination, have demonstrated efficacy for attenuating the negative effects of obesity across different subdomains of structural and functional brain imaging, cognition, and multiple academic outcomes in children with overweight or obesity. Such mitigating effects may be accounted for by attenuated central inflammation, improved insulin sensitivity, and increased expression of neurotrophic factors. Lastly, individual differences appear to play a role in this relationship, as the manipulation of physical activity characteristics, the employment of a wide array of cognitive and academic measures, the inclusion of different adiposity measures that are sensitive to neurocognitive function, and the utilization of an inter-disciplinary approach have been found to influence the relationship between physical activity and excess adiposity on brain and cognition.

The subject-dependent, cumulative, and recency association of aerobic fitness with academic performance in Taiwanese junior high school students

BACKGROUND

The objective of the current study was to examine whether the relation between aerobic fitness and academic achievement during adolescence is subject-dependent, and to investigate cumulative and recency effects.

METHODS

This study made use of two nationwide datasets. The first was the aerobic fitness profile of junior high school students collected by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan. The second contained the scores on the Basic Competence Test for Junior High School Students (BCTJH). The sample consisted of 382,259 students who completed the BCTJH in the 5 years between 2009 and 2013. Data on each student's aerobic fitness during their three years of junior high school were matched with their exam results at the end of this period.

RESULTS

The results revealed that students classified as highly-fit during at least one of the three years had higher BCTJH scores than those who never achieved this level, with the size of effect increasing with the length of time that fitness was maintained. Additionally, aerobic fitness in the final year was more closely linked to BCTJH scores than that in the earlier two years. Fitness was also more strongly associated with exam performance in math, science and social science, relative to language-related subjects.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest that while aerobic fitness is positively related to academic achievement in Taiwanese junior high school students, the relationship depends on academic subject, as well as the length and time of being aerobically fit.