%X Psychological characteristics are associated with varying dementia risk and protective factors. To determine whether these characteristics aggregate into psychological profiles and whether these profiles differentially relate to aging health, we conducted a cross-sectional investigation in two independent middle-aged (51.4 ± 7.0 years (mean ± s.d.); N = 750) and older adult (71.1 ± 5.9 years; N = 282) cohorts, supplemented by longitudinal analyses in the former. Using a person-centered approach, three profiles emerged in both cohorts: those with low protective characteristics (profile 1), high risk characteristics (profile 2) and well-balanced characteristics (profile 3). Profile 1 showed the worst objective cognition in older age and middle age (at follow-up), and most rapid cortical thinning. Profile 2 exhibited the worst mental health symptomology and lowest sleep quality in both older age and middle age. We identified profile-dependent divergent patterns of associations that may suggest two distinct paths for mental, cognitive and brain health, emphasizing the need for comprehensive psychological assessments in dementia prevention research to identify groups for more personalized behavior-change strategies.
%J Nature Mental Health
%T Psychological profiles associated with mental, cognitive and brain health in middle-aged and older adults
%A David Bartrés-Faz
%A Harriet Demnitz-King
%A María Cabello-Toscano
%A Lídia Vaqué-Alcázar
%A Rob Saunders
%A Edelweiss Touron
%A Gabriele Cattaneo
%A Julie Gonneaud
%A Olga Klimecki
%A Núria Bargalló
%A Javier Sánchez-Solana
%A José M Tormos
%A Gäel Chételat
%A Álvaro Pascual-Leone
%A Natalie L Marchant
%A Claire André
%A Romain Bachelet
%A Sebastian Baez Lugo
%A Anne Chocat
%A Fabienne Collette
%A Nina Coll-Padros
%A Sophie Dautricourt
%A Vincent De La Sayette
%A Marion Delarue
%A Eglantine Ferrand Devouge
%A Eric Frison
%A Karine Goldet
%A Frank Jessen
%A Pierre Krolak-Salmon
%A Elizabeth Kuhn
%A Brigitte Landeau
%A Valérie Lefranc
%A Antoine Lutz
%A Florence Mezenge
%A Dix Meiberth
%A Laurence Michel
%A José Luis Molinuevo
%A Valentin Ourry
%A Géraldine Poisnel
%A Anne Quillard
%A Géraldine Rauchs
%A Eric Salmon
%A Ann-Katrin Schild
%A Corinne Schimmer
%A Delphine Smagghe
%A Rhonda Smith
%A Marco Schlosser
%A Patrik Vuilleumier
%A Cédrick Wallet
%A Zuzana Walker
%A Tim Whitfield
%A Miranka Wirth
%A The Medit-Ageing Research Group
%L discovery10203041
%I Springer Science and Business Media LLC
%O This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
%D 2025