Author(s)

Valérie Tikhonoff^1,2, Edoardo Casiglia^2,3*, Federica Albertini^1,2, Federica Gasparotti^1,2, Antonio M. Lapenta², Paolo Spinella¹

¹Department of Medicine, University of Padova, Padua, Italy.
²Institute Franco Granone CIICS of Torino, Torino, Italy.
³Studium Patavinum, University of Padova, Padua, Italy.

High resting heart rate (HR) is independently associated with cardiovascular disease risk. Few studies took into consideration the possible effects of HR on memory. Therefore, memory with interference (MI) at 10 (MI10) and at 30 (MI30) seconds was chosen to test this hypothesis and the role of resting HR on an MI in hypertensive subjects was analysed. MI was chosen because it’s strictly connected with everyday life. Among 832 hypertensive subjects aged 18 - 88 years living in North East Italy recruited in the frame of the Growing Old with Less Disease Enhancing Neurofunctions (GOLDEN) study, we performed an association analysis, accounting for potential confounders, to identify the possible determinants of MI. Both in univariate and multivariate regression analysis, MI10 and MI30 were indirectly associated to basal HR: the higher the HR, the lower the MI. Years of schooling were associated directly and age inversely to both MI10 and MI30. A progressive trend towards reduction of the score was particularly evident for MI30, with two evident cut-off values (equal to 65 and to 73 bpm, respectively). In the case of MI10, 60 bpm was the upper limit of the best performance. Furthermore, being in the first three quartiles rather than in the fourth quartile of MI30 was significantly lower. High HR should be counted among the risk factors or indicators of low memory. The inverse association between high HR and low memory is not ineluctable as it can be prevented by education.

Heart Rate, Hypertension, Cognition, Memory

Tikhonoff, V. , Casiglia, E. , Albertini, F. , Gasparotti, F. , Lapenta, A. and Spinella, P. (2019) Effects of Basal Heart Rate on Memory with Interference among 832 Unselected Hypertensive Subjects from General Population. Psychology, 10, 989-1002. doi: 10.4236/psych.2019.107065.