Summary: A recent study highlights a connection between asthma and memory difficulties in children, with earlier onset linked to slower memory development over time. In testing episodic memory in children aged 9-10, researchers found that those with asthma scored lower than their peers without the condition.
The study suggests that asthma, through factors like chronic inflammation or oxygen disruption, may impact cognitive development. The potential long-term effects, including heightened risk for conditions like dementia, underscore the importance of early monitoring.
Key Facts:
- Children with asthma scored lower on episodic memory tasks than peers without asthma.
- Early-onset asthma was linked to slower memory development in a two-year follow-up.
- Chronic inflammation or oxygen disruption in asthma could contribute to memory difficulties.
Source: UC Davis
Asthma is associated with memory difficulties in children, and early onset of asthma may exacerbate memory deficits, according to a new study from the University of California, Davis.
The study, the first of its kind to connect asthma to memory deficits in children, was published in Nov. 5 in JAMA Network Open.
“This study underscores the importance of looking at asthma as a potential source of cognitive difficulty in children. We are becoming increasingly aware that chronic diseases, not only asthma but also diabetes, heart disease and others may place children at increased risk of cognitive difficulties,” said lead author Simona Ghetti, a professor of psychology in the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain in the College of Letters and Science.
“We need to understand the factors that might exacerbate or protect against the risks.”
Connecting asthma to memory in children
Asthma is a chronic condition that affects the lungs. Attacks are triggered when inflammation causes the airways to tighten, making it hard to breathe. Asthma affects about 260 million people worldwide. In the United States, roughly 4.6 million children have asthma.
“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.
This study included data from 2,062 children 9 to 10 years old with asthma to test how the condition might affect episodic memory and other cognitive measures. Episodic memory is a specific type of memory that makes up the stories of our lives. It’s how we remember experiences and emotions, like events and the people and objects that were there.
The analysis found that children with asthma had lower scores on the episodic memory task than children without the lung condition. In a smaller sample of 473 children who were followed for two years, the research team found that children with an earlier asthma onset, who had the disease for a longer period of time, also had a slower development of memory over time.
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.
While the study did not assess the mechanism responsible for memory difficulties associated with asthma, the research team cited various potential factors, such as prolonged inflammation from asthma or repeated disruptions in oxygen supply to the brain due to asthma attacks.
Research with rodents has also found that common asthma medications have a measurable effect on the hippocampus, a structure in the brain that plays a fundamental role in episodic memory for both rodents and humans.
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.
Funding: 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.
About this neurodevelopment and memory research news
Author: Andrew Fell
Source: UC Davis
Contact: Andrew Fell – UC Davis
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“Asthma and Memory Function in Children” by Simona Ghetti et al. JAMA Network Open
Abstract
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.
