Elevated Activity of the Sympathetic Nervous System Is Related to Diminished Practice Effects in Memory: A Pilot Study

BACKGROUND: Reductions in memory practice effects have gained interest as risk factor for future cognitive decline. Practice effects vary with age and can be moderated by factors such as individual variability in arousal or stress experience acting as an additional cognitive load.

OBJECTIVE: In the current pilot study, we examined whether sympathetic nervous system activation moderates the relationship between age and practice effects.

METHODS: Thirty cognitively healthy individuals aged 40-70 years performed a mnemonic discrimination task twice. Salivary alpha amylase (sAA) samples were obtained at different time points as a proxy of sympathetic activity. Spearman correlations examined the relation between practice effects and sAA. Subsequently, age by sAA interactions on practice scores were explored with bootstrapped linear regression models. Additionally, participants were divided in learners (exhibiting practice effects) and non-learners based on the difference in mnemonic discrimination performance.

RESULTS: Higher age and baseline SNS activity were independently related to lower practice effects. The non-learners showed significantly higher sAA scores at all time points compared to learners. Among the learners, baseline-adjusted lower levels of sAA after encoding were associated with greater practice effects, particularly in middle-aged individuals. No such interaction was observed for non-learners.

CONCLUSION: These results show that higher baseline sympathetic activation is associated with worse practice effects independently of age. Additionally, in a subgroup of middle-aged learners practice effects were observed when sympathetic activity remained low during learning. These findings suggest that elevated sympathetic nervous system activation may be a promising indicator of imminent cognitive decline.