ArticlePsychoneuroendocrinology2015
Does white matter structure or hippocampal volume mediate associations between cortisol and cognitive ageing?
Article in Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Remission is insufficient: predictors and mechanistic models of recurrence in late-life depression.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Effects of aerobic exercise and computer-based cognitive training on cognition, functional independence, quality of life, and salivary cortisol levels in older adults with mild cognitive impairment: a randomized trial.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2026Article
- Longitudinal hair cortisol in bipolar disorder and a mechanism based on HPA dynamics.iScience · 2024Article
- Sex-specific associations of serum cortisol with brain biomarkers of Alzheimer's risk.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Cerebrospinal Fluid Cortisol and Dehydroepiandrosterone Sulfate, Alzheimer's Disease Pathology, and Cognitive Decline.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2022Article
- Corticosterone Administration Alters White Matter Tract Structure and Reduces Gliosis in the Sub-Acute Phase of Experimental Stroke.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
- Promoting Successful Cognitive Aging: A Ten-Year Update.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2021Review
- Serum Cortisol Is Associated With Cerebral Small Vessel Disease-Related Brain Changes and Cognitive Impairment.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2021Article
- Disruption of Neural Homeostasis as a Model of Relapse and Recurrence in Late-Life Depression.The American journal of geriatric psychiatry : official journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry · 2019Review
- Neurobiological mechanisms underlying sex-related differences in stress-related disorders: Effects of neuroactive steroids on the hippocampus.Frontiers in neuroendocrinology · 2019Review
- Theory of mind and psychosocial characteristics in older men.Psychology and aging · 2019Article
- High Cortisol and the Risk of Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease: A Review of the Literature.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2019Review
- Circulating cortisol and cognitive and structural brain measures: The Framingham Heart Study.Neurology · 2018Article
- Brain structural changes in late-life generalized anxiety disorder.Psychiatry research. Neuroimaging · 2017Article
- Associations between hippocampal morphology, diffusion characteristics, and salivary cortisol in older men.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2017Article
- Moderating Effects of Cortisol on Neural-Cognitive Association in Cognitively Normal Elderly Subjects.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2017Article
- In-vivo Dynamics of the Human Hippocampus across the Menstrual Cycle.Scientific reports · 2016Article
- Bilingualism, social cognition and executive functions: A tale of chickens and eggs.Neuropsychologia · 2016Article
- Associations among height, body mass index and intelligence from age 11 to age 78 years.BMC geriatrics · 2016Article
- Sex-specific effect of cortisol on cerebral glucose metabolism across Alzheimer's disease spectrum: a neuroimaging study.Frontiers in neurologyArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Elevated glucocorticoid (GC) levels putatively damage specific brain regions, which in turn may accelerate cognitive ageing. However, many studies are cross-sectional or have relatively short follow-up periods, making it difficult to relate GCs directly to changes in cognitive ability with increasing age. Moreover, studies combining endocrine, MRI and cognitive variables are scarce, measurement methods vary considerably, and formal tests of the underlying causal hypothesis (cortisol→brain→cognition) are absent. In this study, 90 men, aged 73 years, provided measures of fluid intelligence, processing speed and memory, diurnal and reactive salivary cortisol and two measures of white matter (WM) structure (WM hyperintensity volume from structural MRI and mean diffusivity averaged across 12 major tracts from diffusion tensor MRI), hippocampal volume, and also cognitive ability at age 11. We tested whether negative relationships between cognitive ageing differences (over more than 60 years) and salivary cortisol were significantly mediated by WM and hippocampal volume. Significant associations between reactive cortisol at 73 and cognitive ageing differences between 11 and 73 (r=-.28 to -.36, p<.05) were partially mediated by both WM structural measures, but not hippocampal volume. Cortisol-WM relationships were modest, as was the degree to which WM structure attenuated cortisol-cognition associations (<15%). These data support the hypothesis that GCs contribute to cognitive ageing differences from childhood to the early 70s, partly via brain WM structure.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.