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Social support has a positive influence on cognitive functioning and buffers cognitive decline in older adults. This study examined the relations between social support and executive functioning in middle-aged adults. A community-based sample of African Americans completed the Interpersonal Support Evaluation List, a measure of functions of social support, and two measures of executive functioning, the Stroop Color and Word Test and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Hierarchical regression analyses were used to explore the hypothesis that different facets of perceived social support influence performance on measures of executive functioning. After controlling for age, gender, and education, social support facets including belonging support, selfesteem support, appraisal support, and tangible support were significant predictors of Stroop performance. In addition, tangible support significantly predicted WCST performance. These findings add to previous literature on social support and cognition; however, findings for middle-aged adults are unique and suggest that social support has a positive influence on some executive functions in African Americans prior to old age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structure and organization of cognitive abilities has been examined across the life span. The current analysis had three specific aims: (1) test the factor structure of a broad cognitive ability battery across three age groups; (2) examine differences in the pattern of factor covariation across age groups; and (3) examine the pattern of factor mean differences across age groups. A sample of 512 older African Americans (mean age = 66.6 years, 25.4% male) from the Baltimore Study of Black Aging was administered a battery of cognitive tests assessing the domains of perceptual speed, verbal memory, inductive reasoning, vocabulary, and working memory. Factor models were estimated separately in middle-age adults (50–59 years, n = 107), young-old adults (60–69 years, n = 198), and old-old adults (70–79 years, n = 207). There was loading invariance across the three age groups that suggests that the selected tests measured cognition similarly across age. There was no evidence of dedifferentiation across increasingly older age groups. Factor mean differences were observed with the middle-age group having significantly higher factor means than the young-old and old-old groups; however, there was only one factor mean difference between the young-old and the old-old groups. The results suggest that a pattern of dedifferentiation of cognitive abilities does not exist within this sample of older African Americans and that the 60–69 year age range may be a critical period for cognitive decline in this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rates of high blood pressure among African Americans, as a group, are the highest in the world. The implications for higher average blood pressure include complications for many major chronic conditions, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Less well studied is the effect of blood pressure on the cognitive functioning of African Americans. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of blood pressure on memory measures in a sample of adult African Americans. Analyses were conducted on a sample of 361 African American adults (mean age 61.50 years, standard deviation 9.39 years). We found significant correlations between systolic blood pressure and most cognitive measures but only for one of the measures and diastolic blood pressure. Regressions revealed significant effects for systolic blood pressure on Digit Symbol, Telephone Interview of Cognitive Status, and Immediate Recall on the Wechsler Logical Memory test. These findings suggest that blood pressure is a source of individual variability in cognitive aging among African Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]