ArticleAnnals of neurology2020
Normative Cognitive Decline in Old Age.
Article in Annals of neurology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 59 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
59 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Periodontitis and Tooth Loss Are Associated With Higher Risks of Cognitive Disorders: A Systematic Umbrella Meta-Analysis.Clinical and experimental dental research · 2025Pooled it
- Defining exceptional cognition in older adults: A systematic review of cognitive super-ageing.International journal of geriatric psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Screening for mild cognitive impairment in people with obesity: a systematic review.BMC endocrine disorders · 2021Pooled it
- Effect of a cash transfer intervention on memory decline and dementia probability in older adults in rural South Africa.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Trial
- Trial
- The Effects ofNutrients · 2022Trial
- Trial
- Article
- Identification and phenotypic profiling of subgroups with distinct cognitive aging trajectories.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Multimodal MRI prediction of cognitive functioning across the lifespan: separating between-person differences from within-person changes.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Differential Effects of Lifestyle Indicators on Cognitive Functioning Across Healthy, Dementia, Parkinson's Disease, and Stroke Groups.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Cognitive Aging in the Context of the Housing Crisis: Trends and Evidence From the Health and Retirement Study.Canadian studies in population · 2026Article
- Associations of pathologic Parkinson's disease (PD) and co-pathologies with cognitive decline and progression of parkinsonian signs in decedents with subclinical disease.Acta neuropathologica · 2025Article
- The Scammers' Psychological Warfare: A Call to Arms.Psychological science in the public interest : a journal of the American Psychological Society · 2025Article
- Individual Sleep Problems Are Associated With an Accelerated Decline in Multiple Cognitive Functions in Older Adults.Journal of sleep research · 2025Article
- Comparative Effects of Co-administration of Lactobacillus casei and Bifidobacterium breve vs. Monotherapy on Hippocampal Neurodegeneration in a D-Galactose-Induced Aging Model.Molecular neurobiology · 2025Article
- The impact of lifestyle factors on trajectories of cognitive subtypes in the older adult population.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Spermidine supplementation and protein restriction protect from organismal and brain aging independently.Aging · 2025Article
- Brooding, reflection, and anger rumination in late life suicidal behavior.Journal of affective disorders · 2025Article
- Physical, cognitive, and social activities as mediators between personality and cognition: evidence from four prospective samples.Aging & mental health · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo characterize trajectories of normative cognitive aging.
methodsOlder persons without dementia at study enrollment (n = 1,010) had annual cognitive testing for up to 24 years (mean = 9.9 years, standard deviation = 5.0), died, and underwent a neuropathologic examination to quantify 9 postmortem markers of common neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular conditions. To accommodate the heterogeneity in cognitive trajectories, we used functional mixed effects models, which allow individuals to have different patterns of cognitive decline under a unified model structure.
resultsIn a functional mixed effects model, postmortem markers (Alzheimer disease pathology, Lewy bodies, transactive response DNA-binding protein 43 pathology, hippocampal sclerosis, atherosclerosis, gross infarcts) were associated with global cognitive decline. Residual global cognitive decline after adjustment for neuropathologic burden was weakly related to age at death; it occurred in only about one-third of participants, mostly proximate to death. Results were comparable after eliminating the initial cognitive assessments to minimize retest learning or controlling for frailty proximate to death. Analyses were also conducted with composite measures of episodic memory and perceptual speed. Residual decline not attributable to neuropathologic burden was confined to a subset for each outcome and was most evident proximate to death. Age at death was unrelated to residual decline in episodic memory but was related to residual decline in perceptual speed.
interpretationLate life cognitive loss mainly reflects non-normative pathologic and mortality-related processes rather than normative age-related processes. ANN NEUROL 2020;87:816-829.
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.