Study links asthma to memory deficits in children

Asthma is linked to memory problems in children, and early onset of asthma can worsen memory disorders, according to a new study from the University of California, Davis. The study, the first of its kind to link asthma to memory impairment in children, was published on November 5 JAMA network opened.

This study underlines the importance of looking at asthma as a potential source of cognitive problems in children. We are becoming increasingly aware that chronic diseases, not just asthma but also diabetes, heart disease and others, can put children at increased risk for cognitive problems. We need to understand the factors that can exacerbate or protect against the risks.”

Simona Ghetti, lead author, professor of psychology at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain in the College of Letters and Science

Connecting asthma to memory in children

Asthma is a chronic condition that affects the lungs. Attacks are caused when inflammation causes the airways to narrow, making it difficult to breathe. Asthma affects approximately 260 million people worldwide. In the United States, approximately 4.6 million children have asthma.

“Childhood is a period of rapid improvement in memory and, more generally, cognition. In children with asthma, that improvement may be slower,” says Nicholas Christopher-Hayes, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology at UC Davis and the first author of the study.

This study included data from 2,062 children aged 9 to 10 years old with asthma to test how the condition might affect episodic memory and other cognitive measures. Episodic memory is a specific type of memory that shapes the stories of our lives. It is the way we remember experiences and emotions, such as events and the people and objects that were there.

The analysis showed that children with asthma had lower scores on the episodic memory task than children without the lung disease. In a smaller sample of 473 children followed for two years, the research team found that children with earlier onset of asthma, who had had the disease for longer, also had slower memory development over time.

The data from this study came from the National Institutes of Health and was collected beginning in 2015 as part of the large and ongoing Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study of 11,800 children. The analysis compared children with similar characteristics and backgrounds to determine that the differences in memory and other outcomes were related to asthma itself.

Avoiding long-term consequences of asthma

These memory deficits could have longer-term consequences, the researchers said. In previous studies in older adults and in animals, asthma was linked to a greater risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, both of which affect memory.

“Asthma could put children on a trajectory that could increase their risk of developing something more serious, like dementia, later as adults,” says Christopher-Hayes.

Although the study did not assess the mechanism responsible for memory problems associated with asthma, the research team mentioned several potential factors, such as long-term inflammation from asthma or repeated disruptions to brain oxygen supply due to asthma attacks.

Research in rodents has also shown that common asthma medications have a measurable effect on the hippocampus, a structure in the brain that plays a fundamental role in episodic memory in both rodents and humans.

Other authors of this study are Sarah C. Haynes, Nicholas J. Kenyon and Julie B. Schweitzer, UC Davis School of Medicine; and Vidya Merchant, UC Davis. The study was supported by the Memory and Plasticity Program at UC Davis and by a Learning, Memory, and Plasticity Training Program Fellowship from the National Institutes of Health.