Study links asthma to memory deficits in children

Connecting asthma to memory in children

"Childhood is a period of rapid improvement in memory and, more generally, cognition. In children with asthma that improvement may be slower," said Nicholas Christopher-Hayes, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology at UC Davis and the study's first author.

The data from this study came from the National Institutes of Health and were collected beginning in 2015 as part of the large and ongoing Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study of 11,800 children. The analysis compared children who shared similar characteristics and backgrounds to ascertain that the differences in memory and other outcomes were linked to asthma itself.

Avoiding long-term consequences of asthma

These memory deficits may have longer-term consequences, the researchers said. In prior studies with older adults and with animals, asthma was associated with a greater risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease, both of which affect memory.

"Asthma might set children on a trajectory that could increase their risk to later develop something more serious like dementia as adults," said Christopher-Hayes.

Additional authors on this study are Sarah C. Haynes, Nicholas J. Kenyon and Julie B. Schweitzer, UC Davis School of Medicine; and Vidya Merchant, UC Davis. The study was supported by the Memory and Plasticity Program at UC Davis and by a Learning, Memory, and Plasticity Training Program Fellowship from the National Institutes of Health.

Source:

University of California - Davis

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