title: Disentangling cognition and emotion in older adults: the role of cognitive control and mental health in emotional conflict adaptation.
abstract: Recent research suggests cognition has a bidirectional relationship with emotional processing in older adults, yet the relationship is still poorly understood. We aimed to examine a potential relationship between late-life cognitive function, mental health symptoms, and emotional conflict adaptation. We hypothesized that worse cognitive control abilities would be associated with poorer emotional conflict adaptation. We further hypothesized that a higher severity of mental health symptoms would be associated with poorer emotional conflict adaptation.
  
  
  
  Participants included 83 cognitively normal community-dwelling older adults who completed a targeted mental health and cognitive battery, and emotion and gender conflict-adaptation tasks.
  
  
  
  Consistent with our hypothesis, poorer performance on components of cognitive control, specifically attention and working memory, was associated with poorer emotional conflict adaptation. This association with attention and working memory was not observed in the non-affective-based gender conflict adaptation task. Mental health symptoms did not predict emotional conflict adaptation, nor did performance on other cognitive measures.
  
  
  
  Our findings suggest that emotion conflict adaptation is disrupted in older individuals who have poorer attention and working memory. Components of cognitive control may therefore be an important potential source of inter-individual differences in late-life emotion regulation and cognitive affective deficits. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.|Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC), Palo Alto VA Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, USA.|War Related Illness and Injury Study Center (WRIISC), VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Nathan C
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-4261-8330
authors.initials: NC
authors.lastname: Hantke
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.|Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC), Palo Alto VA Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Anett
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gyurak
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Palo Alto University, Palo Alto, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Katie
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Van Moorleghem
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.|Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC), Palo Alto VA Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, USA.|Department of Psychology, Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, MO, USA.
authors.forename: Jill D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Waring
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.|War Related Illness and Injury Study Center (WRIISC), VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Maheen M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Adamson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.|Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC), Palo Alto VA Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, USA.|University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: O'Hara
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.|Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC), Palo Alto VA Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, USA.|University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Sherry A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Beaudreau
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology; D008603:Mental Health
keywords: cognition; cognitive control; emotion conflict adaptation; emotion regulation; older adults; working memory