title: Lower blood pressure correlates with poorer performance on visuospatial attention tasks in younger individuals.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The George Washington University, 2125 G Street, Washington, DC 20005, United States. whitw@gwu.edu
authors.forename: Whitney
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wharton
authors.forename: Elliot
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hirshman
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Merritt
authors.forename: Bethany
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Stangl
authors.forename: Kathleen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Scanlin
authors.forename: Lauren
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Krieger
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology*; D001823:Body Composition; D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D005080:Exercise Test; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D007022:Hypotension / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011603:Psychophysiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology*