Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Personality factors and cerebral glucose metabolism in community-dwelling older adults

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Brain Structure and Function Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Personality factors have been associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and dementia, but they have not been examined against markers of regional brain glucose metabolism (a primary measure of brain functioning) in older adults without clinically diagnosed cognitive impairment. The relationship between personality factors derived from the five-factor model and cerebral glucose metabolism determined using positron emission tomography (PET) with [18F]-2-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose (18F-FDG-PET) was examined in a cohort of 237 non-demented, community-dwelling older adults aged 60–89 years (M ± SD = 73.76 ± 6.73). Higher neuroticism and lower scores on extraversion and conscientiousness were significantly associated with decreased glucose metabolism in brain regions typically affected by AD neuropathological processes, including the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex. Furthermore, while there were significant differences between apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele carriers and non-carriers on 18F-FDG-PET results in the neocortex and other brain regions (p < 0.05), there was no significant difference between carriers and non-carriers on personality factors and no significant interactions were found between APOE ε4 carriage and personality factors on brain glucose metabolism. In conclusion, we found significant relationships between personality factors and glucose metabolism in neural regions more susceptible to AD neuropathology in older adults without clinically significant cognitive impairment. These findings support the need for longitudinal research into the potential mechanisms underlying the relationship between personality and dementia risk, including measurement of change in other AD biomarkers (amyloid and tau imaging) and how they correspond to change in personality factors. Future research is also warranted to determine whether timely psychological interventions aimed at personality facets (specific aspects or characteristics of personality factors) can affect imaging or other biomarkers of AD resulting in delay or ideally preventing the onset of the cognitive impairment.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Adams JN, Lockhart SN, Li L, Jagust WJ (2018) Relationships between tau and glucose metabolism reflect Alzheimer’s disease pathology in cognitively normal older adults. Cereb Cortex 2019:29

    Google Scholar 

  • Albert PR (2015) Why is depression more prevalent in women? J Psychiatry Neurosci JPN 40:219

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Allen TA, Deyoung CG (2016) Personality neuroscience and the five factor model. In: Widiger TA (ed) Oxford handbook of the five factor model. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Balestrieri M, Nacmias B, Sorbi S, Marcon G (2000) Are premorbid personality traits linked to the risk of alzheimer’s disease? Psychother Psychosom 69:335–338

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Balsis S, Carpenter BD, Storandt M (2005) Personality change precedes clinical diagnosis of dementia of the Alzheimer type. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 60:P98–P101

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bjornebekk A, Fjell AM, Walhovd KB, Grydeland H, Torgersen S, Westlye LT (2013) Neuronal correlates of the five factor model (FFM) of human personality: multimodal imaging in a large healthy sample. Neuroimage 65:194–208

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bourgeat P, Dore V, Fripp J, Villemagne VL, Rowe CC, Salvado O (2015) Computational analysis of PET by AIBL (CapAIBL): a cloud-based processing pipeline for the quantification of PET images. In: Medical imaging 2015: image processing, 2015. International Society for Optics and Photonics, p 94132V

  • Bozzola FG, Gorelick PB, Freels S (1992) Personality changes in Alzheimer's disease. Arch Neurol 49:297–300

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Chapman B, Duberstein P, Tindle HA, Sink KM, Robbins J, Tancredi DJ, Franks P, GEOMS Investigators (2012) Personality predicts cognitive function over 7 years in older persons. Am J Geriatric Psychiatry 20:612–621

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Costa PT, McCrae RR (1992) Normal personality assessment in clinical practice: the NEO personality Inventory. Psychol Assess 4:5–13

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • D’Iorio A, Garramone F, Piscopo F, Baiano C, Raimo S, Santangelo GJJOASD (2018) Meta-analysis of personality traits in alzheimer’s disease: a comparison with healthy subjects. J Alzheimer's Dis 62:773–787

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dar-Nimrod I, Chapman BP, Franks P, Robbins J, Porsteinsson A, Mapstone M, Duberstein PR (2012) Personality factors moderate the associations between apolipoprotein genotype and cognitive function as well as late onset Alzheimer disease. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry 201:1026–1035

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deyoung CG, Quilty LC, Peterson JB (2007) Between facets and domains: 10 aspects of the Big Five. J Pers Soc Psychol 93:880

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Diaz AP, Schwarzbold ML, Thais ME, Cavallazzi GG, Schmoeller R, Nunes JC, Hohl A, Guarnieri R, Linhares MN, Walz R (2014) Personality changes and return to work after severe traumatic brain injury: a prospective study. Rev Bras Psiquiatr 36:213–219

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Digman JM, Inouye J (1986) Further specification of the five robust factors of personality. J Pers Soc Psychol 50:116

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fischer H, Wik G, Fredrikson M (1997) Extraversion, neuroticism and brain function: A PET study of personality. Personality Individ Differ 23:345–352

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg LR (1990) An alternative “description of personality”: the big-five factor structure. J Person Soc Psychol 59:1216

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Gracia-García P, De-La-cámara C, Santabárbara J, Lopez-Anton R, Quintanilla MA, Ventura T, Marcos G, Campayo A, Saz P, Lyketsos C (2015) Depression and incident alzheimer disease: the impact of disease severity. Am J Geriatric Psychiatry 23:119–129

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Griffin AS, Guillette LM, Healy SDJTIE, Evolution (2015) Cognition and personality: an analysis of an emerging field. Trend Ecol Evol 30:207–214

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Islam M, Mazumder M, Schwabe-Warf D, Stephan Y, Sutin AR, Terracciano A (2019) Personality changes with dementia from the informant perspective: new data and meta-analysis. J Am Med Dir Assoc 20:131–137

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Jackson J, Balota DA, Head D (2011) Exploring the relationship between personality and regional brain volume in healthy aging. Neurobiol Aging 32:2162–2171

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Jagust W (2018) Imaging the evolution and pathophysiology of Alzheimer disease. Nature Rev Neurosci 19:687

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Johansson L, Guo X, Duberstein PR, Hallstrom T, Waern M, Ostling S, Skoog I (2014) Midlife personality and risk of Alzheimer disease and distress: a 38-year follow-up. Neurology 83:1538–1544

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson DL, Wiebe JS, Gold SM, Andreasen NC, Hichwa RD, Watkins GL, Boles Ponto LL (1999) Cerebral blood flow and personality: a positron emission tomography study. Am J Psychiatry 156:252–257

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson LA, Sohrabi HR, Hall JR, Kevin T, Edwards M, O'Bryant SE, Martins RN (2015) A depressive endophenotype of poorer cognition among cognitively healthy community-dwelling adults: results from the Western Australia memory study. Int J Geriatric Psychiatry 30:881–886

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson KA, Schultz A, Betensky RA, Becker JA, Sepulcre J, Rentz D, Mormino E, Chhatwal J, Amariglio R, Papp K (2016) Tau positron emission tomographic imaging in aging and early A lzheimer disease. Ann Neurol 79:110–119

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Leonhardt A, Schmukle SC, Exner C (2016) Evidence of Big-Five personality changes following acquired brain injury from a prospective longitudinal investigation. J Psychosom Res 82:17–23

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lovibond PF, Lovibond SH (1995) The structure of negative emotional states: Comparison of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) with the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories. Behav Res Ther 33:335–343

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Low LF, Harrison F, Lackersteen SM (2013) Does personality affect risk for dementia? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Am J Geriatric Psychiatry 21:713–728

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCabe KA, Woods SP, Weinborn M, Sohrabi HR, Rainey-Smith S, Brown BM, Gardener SL, Taddei K, Martins RN (2018) Personality characteristics are independently associated with prospective memory in the laboratory, and in daily Life, among older adults. J Res Pers 76:32–37

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCrae RR, Costa PT (1987) Validation of the five-factor model of personality across instruments and observers. J Pers Soc Psychol 52:81

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • McCrae RR, Costa Jr PT (2010) NEO inventories professional manual. Psychological Assessment Resources, Odessa, FL

  • Mielke MM, Vemuri P, Rocca WA (2014) Clinical epidemiology of Alzheimer's disease: assessing sex and gender differences. Clin Epidemiol 6:37–48

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Montag C, Kunz L, Axmacher N, Sariyska R, Lachmann B, Reuter M (2014) Common genetic variation of the APOE gene and personality. BMC Neurosci 15:64

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Mosconi L (2013) Glucose metabolism in normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease: methodological and physiological considerations for PET studies. Clin Transl Imaging 1:217–233

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nishita Y, Tange C, Tomida M, Otsuka R, Ando F, Shimokata H (2016) Personality and global cognitive decline in Japanese community-dwelling elderly people: A 10-year longitudinal study. J Psychosom Res 91:20–25

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Palmqvist S, Schöll M, Strandberg O, Mattsson N, Stomrud E, Zetterberg H, Blennow K, Landau S, Jagust W, Hansson O (2017) Earliest accumulation of β-amyloid occurs within the default-mode network and concurrently affects brain connectivity. Nature Commun 8:1214

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Rimajova M, Lenzo NP, Wu J-S, Bates KA, Campbell A, Dhaliwal SS, Mccarthy M, Rodrigues M, Paton A, Rowe CJJOASD (2008) Fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG)-PET in APOEε4 carriers in the Australian population. J Am Med Direct Assoc 13:137–146

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Roberts BW, Walton KE, Viechtbauer W (2006) Patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course: a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychol Bull 132:1–25

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Roberts BW, Luo J, Briley DA, Chow PI, Su R, Hill PL (2017) A systematic review of personality trait change through intervention. Psychol Bull 143:117–U122

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Robins-Wahlin TB, Byrne GJ (2011) Personality changes in Alzheimer's disease: a systematic review. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry 26:1019–1029

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rossetti HC, Lacritz LH, Cullum CM, Weiner MF (2011) Normative data for the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) in a population-based sample. Neurology 77:1272–1275

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Schultz SA, Gordon BA, Mishra S, Su Y, Morris JC, Ances BM, Duchek JM, Balota DA, Benzinger TL (2019) Association between personality and tau-PET binding in cognitively normal older adults. Brain Imaging Behavior 2019:1–10

    Google Scholar 

  • Silverman DH, Small GW, Chang CY, Lu CS, de Aburto MAK, Chen W, Czernin J, Rapoport SI, Pietrini P, Alexander GE (2001) Positron emission tomography in evaluation of dementia: regional brain metabolism and long-term outcome. JAMA 286:2120–2127

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sohrabi HR, Bates KA, Rodrigues M, Taddei K, Martins G, Laws SM, Lautenschlager NT, Dhaliwal SS, Foster JK, Martins RN (2009) The relationship between memory complaints, perceived quality of life and mental health in apolipoprotein Eepsilon4 carriers and non-carriers. J Alzheimers Dis 17:69–79

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Specht J, Egloff B, Schmukle SC (2011) Stability and change of personality across the life course: the impact of age and major life events on mean-level and rank-order stability of the Big Five. J Pers Soc Psychol 101:862–882

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tabchnick BG, Fidell LS (2006) Using multivariate statistics. Allyin & Bacon, Boston

    Google Scholar 

  • Taki Y, Thyreau B, Kinomura S, Sato K, Goto R, Wu K, Kawashima R, Fukuda H (2013) A longitudinal study of the relationship between personality traits and the annual rate of volume changes in regional gray matter in healthy adults. Hum Brain Mapp 34:3347–3353

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Talassi E, Cipriani G, Bianchetti A, Trabucchi M (2007) Personality changes in Alzheimer's disease. Aging Ment Health 11:526–531

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tautvydaitė D, Kukreja D, Antonietti J-P, Henry H, von Gunten A, Popp J (2017) Interaction between personality traits and cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease pathology modulates cognitive performance. Alzheimer's Res Therapy 9:6

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Terracciano A, Iacono D, O’Brien RJ, Troncoso JC, An Y, Sutin AR, Ferrucci L, Zonderman AB, Resnick SM (2013) Personality and resilience to Alzheimer’s disease neuropathology: a prospective autopsy study. Neurobiol Aging 34:1045–1050

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Terracciano A, Sutin AR, An Y, O'Brien RJ, Ferrucci L, Zonderman AB, Resnick SM (2014) Personality and risk of Alzheimer's disease: new data and meta-analysis. Alzheimer's Dementia 10:179–186

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Terracciano A, Stephan Y, Luchetti M, Albanese E, Sutin AR (2017) Personality traits and risk of cognitive impairment and dementia. J Psychiatr Res 89:22–27

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Tsai SJ, Yu YW, Hong CJ (2004) Personality traits in young female apolipoprotein E (apoE) epsilon4 and non-epsilon4 carriers. Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet 124B:58–60

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tzourio-Mazoyer N, Landeau B, Papathanassiou D, Crivello F, Etard O, Delcroix N, Mazoyer B, Joliot M (2002) Automated anatomical labeling of activations in SPM using a macroscopic anatomical parcellation of the MNI MRI single-subject brain. Neuroimage 15:273–289

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Weisberg YJ, Deyoung CG, Hirsh JB (2011) Gender differences in personality across the ten aspects of the Big Five. Front Psychol 2:178

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Weissman MM, Bland RC, Canino GJ, Faravelli C, Greenwald S, Hwu H-G, Joyce PR, Karam EG, Lee C-K, Lellouch J (1996) Cross-national epidemiology of major depression and bipolar disorder. JAMA 276:293–299

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Williams PG, Suchy Y, Kraybill ML (2013) Preliminary evidence for low openness to experience as a pre-clinical marker of incipient cognitive decline in older adults. J Res Pers 47:945–951

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhou L, Salvado O, Dore V, Bourgeat P, Raniga P, Macaulay SL, Ames D, Masters CL, Ellis KA, Villemagne VL et al (2014) MR-less surface-based amyloid assessment based on 11C PiB PET. PLoS ONE 9:e84777

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

The WA Memory Study (WAMS) was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (Grant Number: 324100 awarded to RNM), an Early Career Researcher Grant from Edith Cowan University (HRS; G1001512-2014), the Australian Alzheimer’s Research Foundation Inc., and the McCusker Charitable Foundation. The KARVIAH Study was supported by the Australian Alzheimer’s Research Foundation and the Foundation for Aged Care, Anglicare, Sydney, Australia. The authors would like to thank the WAMS and KARVIAH Study participants and research assistants and volunteers, without whose contribution this research would not be possible.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology and Exercise Science, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA, 6150, Australia

    Hamid R. Sohrabi & Belinda M. Brown

  2. Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia

    Hamid R. Sohrabi, Kathryn Goozee, Kaikai Shen & Ralph N. Martins

  3. Australian Alzheimer’s Research Foundation, Ralph and Patricia Sarich Neuroscience Research Institute, Nedlands, WA, 6009, Australia

    Hamid R. Sohrabi, Kathryn Goozee, Kevin Taddei, Manja Laws & Ralph N. Martins

  4. School of Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, WA, 6027, Australia

    Hamid R. Sohrabi, Michael Weinborn, Belinda M. Brown, Stephanie R. Rainey-Smith, Kevin Taddei, Simon M. Laws, Nat Lenzo, Manja Laws & Ralph N. Martins

  5. Clinical Research Department, Anglicare Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2154, Australia

    Kathryn Goozee

  6. School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia

    Michael Weinborn & Romola S. Bucks

  7. CSIRO Health and Biosecurity, The Australian eHealth Research Centre, Herston, QLD, 4029, Australia

    Kaikai Shen & Olivier Salvado

  8. Cogstate, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia

    Paul Maruff

  9. School of Biomedical Sciences, Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute, Curtin University, Bentley, WA, 6102, Australia

    Simon M. Laws

  10. Oceanic Medical Imaging, Hollywood Medical Centre, Nedlands, WA, 6009, Australia

    Nat Lenzo

  11. Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA

    Colin DeYoung

  12. School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, WA, 6027, Australia

    Craig Speelman

  13. Section for Dementia Research, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Hertie Institute of Clinical Brain Research, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Christoph Laske

  14. German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Tübingen, Germany

    Christoph Laske

  15. University of Melbourne Academic Unit for Psychiatry of Old Age, St George’s Hospital, Kew, VIC, 3101, Australia

    David Ames

  16. National Ageing Research Institute, Parkville, VIC, 3052, Australia

    David Ames

  17. Department of Psychology, ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia

    Greg Savage

Authors
  1. Hamid R. Sohrabi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Kathryn Goozee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Michael Weinborn
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Kaikai Shen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Belinda M. Brown
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Stephanie R. Rainey-Smith
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Olivier Salvado
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Kevin Taddei
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Romola S. Bucks
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Paul Maruff
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  11. Simon M. Laws
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  12. Nat Lenzo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  13. Manja Laws
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  14. Colin DeYoung
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  15. Craig Speelman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  16. Christoph Laske
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  17. David Ames
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  18. Greg Savage
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  19. Ralph N. Martins
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hamid R. Sohrabi.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

Authors declare no conflict of interest in relation to this study. HRS has received remuneration for previous activities with Pfizer and Takeda pharmaceuticals. RNM is the Founder and owns stock in Alzhyme Pty Ltd and KaRa Neuroscience Institute. PM is a full-time employee of Cogstate.

Ethical statement

All procedures performed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and research committees and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was conducted after receiving Ethics approval from Institutional Ethics Committees and all participants provided informed consent prior to study enrolment.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 36 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Sohrabi, H.R., Goozee, K., Weinborn, M. et al. Personality factors and cerebral glucose metabolism in community-dwelling older adults. Brain Struct Funct 225, 1511–1522 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-020-02071-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-020-02071-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation