Lower blood pressure correlates with poorer performance on visuospatial attention tasks in younger individuals

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Whitney Wharton ; Elliot Hirshman ; Paul Merritt ; Bethany Stangl ; Kathleen Scanlin ; Lauren Krieger
• 关键词：Blood pressure ; Cognition ; Hypertension ; Hypotension ; Visuospatial ; Recognition memory
• 刊名：Biological Psychology
• 出版年：2006
• 出版时间：October 2006
• 年：2006
• 卷：73
• 期：3
• 页码：227-234
• 全文大小：223 K

文摘

The relationship between low blood pressure and cognitive function among younger individuals is not fully understood. While a number of studies have examined hypertensive and hypotensive individuals, particularly in older populations, little attention has been devoted to healthy, young populations. We tested 105 healthy young individuals whose blood pressure levels naturally fell in the below normal-to-normal range. Our primary finding was a positive relation between blood pressure and cognition, as measured by two visuospatial attention tasks. This relation appears to be specific to visuospatial skills, as no relationship was observed between recognition memory and blood pressure. We discuss possible explanations for this positive relationship, such as structural neural mechanisms, and how they apply to the overall blood pressure–cognition relationship.