title: Early life development in a multiethnic sample and the relation to late life cognition.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Poor quality of early life conditions has been associated with poorer late life cognition and increased risk of dementia. Early life physical development can be captured using adult measures of height and head circumference. Availability of resources may be reflected by socioeconomic indicators, such as parental education and family size. We sought to determine the association between early life development and experience and late life semantic memory, episodic memory, and executive functioning abilities, as well as rate of cognitive decline.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study was conducted using the UC Davis Aging Diversity cohort, an ethnically diverse sample of Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic individuals from northern California. We used latent variable modeling to measure growth and childhood socioeconomic environment (SES) and examine their associations with longitudinal cognitive outcomes using mixed effects modeling.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Growth was positively related to higher childhood SES. Higher childhood SES was associated with better semantic memory. Both low growth and low SES were associated with increased rate of cognitive decline.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings demonstrate that early life experiences influence the trajectory of cognitive aging. Early life development and experience appears to provide a distal basis upon which additional risk and protective factors interact in the development of dementia.
authors.affiliation: VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, California. Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles. rebecca.melrose@va.gov.
authors.forename: Rebecca J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Melrose
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Brewster
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego.
authors.forename: María J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Marquine
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: MacKay-Brandt
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis.
authors.forename: Bruce
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Reed
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis.
authors.forename: Sarah T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Farias
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis.
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mungas
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000208:ethnology*; D002140:California / Q000208:ethnology; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000208:ethnology*; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D012923:Social Class
keywords: Cognition; Longitudinal change; Minority and diverse populations