Cognitive reserve explains differential susceptibility of cognitive performance to neuropathology. We investigated whether certain personality traits underlie cognitive reserve and are accordingly associated with better cognition and less cognitive decline in the presence of age-related brain changes. We included healthy adults aged 19–80 years for cross-sectional (N=399) and longitudinal (N=273, mean follow-up time=5 years, SD=0.7 years) analyses. Assessment of the BIG5 personality traits openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism was questionnaire-based. Each cognitive domain (perceptual speed, memory, fluid reasoning, vocabulary) was measured with up to six tasks. Cognitive domain-specific brain status variables were obtained by combining 77 structural brain measures into single scores using elastic net regularization. These brain status variables explained up to 43.1% of the variance in cognitive performance. We found that higher openness was associated with higher fluid reasoning and better vocabulary after controlling for brain status, age, and sex. Further, lower brain status was associated with a greater decline in perceptual speed only in individuals with low openness. We conclude that high openness benefits cognitive reserve.

中文翻译：

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人格特质和认知储备——在与年龄相关的大脑变化的情况下，高度开放性有利于认知

认知储备解释了认知表现对神经病理学的不同敏感性。我们研究了某些人格特征是否是认知储备的基础，并因此与年龄相关的大脑变化时更好的认知和更少的认知下降相关。我们纳入了 19-80 岁的健康成年人进行横断面（N=399）和纵向（N=273，平均随访时间=5 年，SD=0.7 年）分析。BIG5 人格特质开放性、尽责性、外向性、宜人性和神经质的评估是基于问卷的。每个认知领域（知觉速度、记忆力、流畅推理、词汇量）均通过最多六项任务进行测量。通过使用弹性网络正则化将 77 个结构性大脑测量值合并为单个分数，获得特定于认知领域的大脑状态变量。这些大脑状态变量解释了高达 43.1% 的认知表现差异。我们发现，在控制大脑状态、年龄和性别后，更高的开放性与更高的流畅推理和更好的词汇量相关。此外，只有在开放性较低的个体中，较低的大脑状态才与感知速度的更大下降相关。我们的结论是，高度开放有利于认知储备。