Background. Adults with type two diabetes mellitus (DM2) show cognitive deficits within the executive function domain. The detrimental effects of DM2 over executive function (EF) performance may be mediated by factors such as cognitive reserve (CR). CR mediates cognitive performance by delaying the appearance of clinical symptoms from subjacent brain pathology or attenuating the severity of such symptoms. Our main goal was to study the effects of CR on executive functions of adults with DM2. Methods. Data from a total of 1,034 adults were included (362 women, 672 men). Subjects were categorized into four groups: subjects with DM2 and high CR ( ), control subjects with high CR ( ), subjects with DM2 and low CR ( ), and control subjects with low CR ( ). CR was quantified through 3 proxies: education, occupational complexity, and leisure activities. Executive functions were evaluated through visual scanning, verbal fluency, and backwards counting tasks. First, a series of four one-way ANOVAs was performed where group was included as a between-subject factor and executive function as a dependent variable. Second, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to assess the weight of each CR proxy on EF performance. Results. CR level significantly affected all executive function scores independently of the diabetes status. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that years of education accounted for most of the variance in the model for executive function performance. In this study, we found that there is a significant effect of CR on executive function performance of DM2 subjects and education is the most important CR proxy.

Introduction Several studies have argued a causal relationship between diabetes and depression, while others have highlighted that their association is a result of common risk factors. Because Mexico is a country with a high prevalence of diabetes, and diabetes and depression are a frequent comorbidity, we chose this country to investigate the longitudinal relationship of these two conditions, focusing on the influence of demographic, health, and socioeconomic factors which could act as common risk factors for both conditions. Research design and methods Using the harmonized Mexican Health and Aging Study, a nationally representative sample of adults older than 50 with a response rate of 93%, we analyzed the longitudinal relationship of diabetes and depressive symptoms using ‘between-within’ random-effects models, focusing on the effect of demographic, socioeconomic and health factors. Results While older adults with diabetes reported a higher prevalence of depressive symptoms in the four waves of the study, there was no causal longitudinal association between them once controlling for demographic, socioeconomic and health factors (between-effect OR=0.88, 95% CI 0.77 to 1.01; within-effect OR=0.87, 95% CI 0.69 to 1.11). Conclusions There is no causal longitudinal association between diabetes and depression; the higher prevalence of depression among older adults with diabetes seems a result of socioeconomic and health factors that are not exclusive to respondents with diabetes but are more frequent in this group. Our results highlight the importance of prevention and control of chronic conditions as well as the role of socioeconomic inequalities in mental health.

Background. Research suggests a significant association between increasing age and memory impairments. Nevertheless, for some individuals, memory performance stays within or above the normative values of younger subjects. This is known as successful memory aging and is associated with specific neurophysiological features and psychological and lifestyle-related variables. To date, little is known about the association between successful memory aging and intrinsic capacity (IC) defined as the composite of all the physical and mental (including psychosocial) capacities that an individual can draw on at any point in time and resilience. Hence, the aim of this study was to determine if longitudinal associations between IC and successful memory aging and resilience exist and to find differences in cognitive performance between Mexican older adults with successful memory aging, older adults with average memory, and older adults with memory impairment. Methods. Longitudinal data from 590 individuals from the third wave (2012) and the Mex-Cog subsample (2016) of the Mexican Health and Aging Study was analysed. Subjects were classified into 3 groups: (1) older adults with successful memory aging (SUMA), (2) older adults with average memory (AVMA), and (3) older adults with memory impairment (IMA). Cognitive domains of orientation, language, attention, constructional praxis, and executive function were evaluated. IC and resilience were measured using items from the MHAS battery. Analysis of variance and multinomial logistic regressions were used to find differences in IC and resilience across the memory aging groups. Results. ANOVAs showed significant differences across the three cognitive performance groups in all cognitive domains. Multinomial logistic regression analyses revealed that respondents with higher scores in the psychological and cognitive domains of IC at baseline were more likely to have successful memory aging in the subsequent wave of the study. More resilient subjects in 2012 were not more likely to become a SUMA in 2016. However, this could be a result of the way resilience was measured. Conclusion. Our main findings suggest that intrinsic capacity could be used as a predictor of successful memory aging specifically in the psychological and the cognitive domains. More longitudinal studies are needed to further examine these associations.

Background/Objectives: The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is a widely used cognitive screening tool designed to detect cognitive impairment. However, evidence indicates that the original cut-off score of 26 and the one-point correction for low education may not be appropriate across diverse populations. In Latin America, and particularly in Mexico, existing validation studies are scarce and limited by small sample sizes. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of age and education on MoCA performance in Mexican adults and to develop regression-based normative data for more accurate interpretation. Methods: MoCA performance of 2546 cognitively healthy participants aged 18–99 years from two public health institutions in Mexico City was analyzed. Inclusion criteria required preserved cognition, functionality, independence, and absence of conditions directly affecting brain health. The Spanish version 8.1 of the MoCA was administered. Age-adjusted normative values were obtained. Then, regression analyses were applied to generate age- and education-adjusted norms. Results: MoCA total scores correlated negatively with age and positively with education, while sex showed no significant effect. Regression-based norms revealed that identical raw total scores have different normative interpretations depending on age and education. Conclusions: This study provides the first regression-based MoCA norms for Mexican adults, demonstrating that both age and education exert a substantial influence on test performance. These norms enable a more precise, culturally sensitive interpretation than fixed cut-off scores and reduce the risk of misclassification in clinical and research settings.

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have a psycholinguistic profile evincing multiple syntactic processing impairments. Spanish-speaking children with DLD struggle with gender agreement on clitics; however, the existing evidence comes from offline, elicitation tasks. In the current study, we sought to determine whether converging evidence of this deficit can be found. In particular, we use the real-time processing technique of event-related brain potentials (ERP) with direct-object clitic pronouns in Spanish-speaking children with DLD. Our participants include 15 six-year-old Mexican Spanish-speaking children with DLD and 19 typically developing, age-matched (TD) children. Auditory sentences that matched or did not match the gender features of antecedents represented in pictures were employed as stimuli in a visual–auditory gender agreement task. Gender-agreement violations were associated with an enhanced anterior negativity between 250 and 500 ms post-target onset in the TD children group. In contrast, children with DLD showed no such effect. This absence of the left anterior negativity (LAN) effect suggests weaker lexical representation of morphosyntactic gender features and/or non-adult-like morphosyntactic gender feature checking for the DLD children. We discuss the relevance of these findings for theoretical accounts of DLD. Our findings may contribute to a better understanding of syntactic agreement processing and language disorders.

Background Depression in ageing adults is a public health problem. Worldwide studies have identified social and health risk factors for depressive symptoms. However, little is known about their longitudinal determinants in Mexico. Objectives and setting To find the prevalence of depressive symptoms and their longitudinal individual and contextual risk factors in Mexican adults aged 50 and older. Design Secondary data of 6460 persons aged 50 years and older from the Mexican Health and Aging Study were analysed using a ‘between-within’ panel data analysis approach. Results The prevalence of depressive symptoms increased from 35% in 2003 to 38% in 2015. The significantly longitudinal factors associated with these symptoms were getting older (OR 1.02, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.03), being a woman (OR 2.39, 95% CI 2.16 to 2.64), less time spent in formal education (0 years and less than 6 years OR 1.52, 95% CI 1.32 to 1.75 and OR 1.33, 95% CI 1.19 to 1.50, respectively), lower net worth (OR 1.13, 95% CI 1.08 to 1.17), being recently unemployed (OR 1.25, 95% CI 1.10 to 1.25), increased (OR 1.17, 95% CI 1.10 to 1.25) or increasing number (OR 1.23, 95% CI 1.15 to 1.31) of chronic conditions, poor (OR 4.68, 95% CI 4.26 to 5.15) or worsened (OR 1.71, 95% CI 1.61 to 1.81) self-rated health and having impairments on instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) (OR 2.94 95% CI 2.35 to 3.67) or a new IADL impairment (OR 1.67, 95% CI 1.48 to 1.89), as well as having impairments on ADLs (OR 1.51, 95% CI 1.23 to 1.86) or a new ADL impairment (OR 1.34, 95% CI 1.21 to 1.48). Conclusions The prevalence of depressive symptoms in Mexican adults aged 50 and older is high. Our findings show that they are longitudinally associated with the individual’s demographic, socioeconomic, health and disability characteristics. Efforts in public policy should focus on preventing chronic conditions and disability, as well as fighting inequalities to reduce the prevalence of depressive symptoms.