The Colorado Adoption/Twin Study of Lifespan Behavioral Development and Cognitive Aging (CATSLife): An Introduction

Cognitive development during infancy, early childhood and adolescence, coupled with health and activity patterns, may lay down crucial cognitive reserves uniquely salient to later cognitive functioning. However, relatively... [ view full abstract ]

Cognitive development during infancy, early childhood and adolescence, coupled with health and activity patterns, may lay down crucial cognitive reserves uniquely salient to later cognitive functioning. However, relatively little is known about the developmental genetic and environmental etiologies of individual differences in rates of age-related cognitive change from a long-term longitudinal perspective. The purpose of this presentation is to introduce the CATSLife study, and its overarching goal to examine cognitive trajectories and their moderators—spanning infancy through early adulthood—to evaluate pathways of resilience and vulnerability at the threshold of mid-adulthood. CATSLife brings together the Colorado Adoption Project and parallel Longitudinal Twin Study, to leverage early life assessments and design features. The primary aims are to: (a) assess individual differences in growth and maintenance of cognitive abilities approaching midlife; (b) evaluate physical and biochemical factors (e.g., blood pressure, serum lipids) and genetic factors (e.g., APOE, polygenic risk scores) that may be associated with sustaining cognitive performance; and (c) evaluate environmental factors from infancy through early adulthood that may decrease, sustain or even boost cognitive performance (e.g., geocoded neighborhood features). Our first 21 months of recruitment at ages 30-45 includes testing of 580 participants towards our target of 1600. To date, serum lipids and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (bdnf) have been assayed for 415 samples. APOE genotyping has been completed on 464 CAP (274 probands, 190 siblings) and 894 LTS participants (480 MZ, 414 DZ) using newly collected and stored samples; chip genotyping is pending. Geocoding validation has recovered 85-87% exact matches to earliest historical addresses, and census blocks for 99% of the participants.  We present study plans and initial results of new projects (e.g., cognition and associations with APOE, activity engagement, and neighborhood stress; subjective versus objective neighborhood assessments) in the context of a lifespan perspective on cognitive aging.