Justin Zaluk
Professor Vejdemo-Johansson
HON 223
8 November 2021
“Scientists Pinpoint Personality Traits that Increase Risk of Alzheimer’s”
The scientific news article “Scientists Pinpoint Personality Traits that Increase Risk of Alzheimer’s”, published by the New York Post and written by Vanessa Chalmers, conveys an intriguing scientific discovery that is based off of a peer reviewed research paper. As a way to give some background regarding this prominent topic, the article explains the five major categories of personalities that researchers look at when considering mental health. These “conscientiousness”, “agreeableness”, “neuroticism”, “openness”, and “extroversion” personality types involve individuals that range from compassionate and calm, to anxious and depressed. Chalmers goes on to elaborate how a group of scientists conducted a study known as the “Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging”, in which three thousand individuals participated in a complex personality assessment. These researchers performed brain scans on the participants a year later, searching for evidence of tau and amyloid proteins around brain cells, which are both largely connected to gradual memory loss. The article explains how it was revealed that the neuroticism personality type displayed higher protein buildup, when compared to the more calm-natured conscientious members. Although Chalmers makes it clear that correlation does not necessarily mean causation in this case, this revelation can be helpful in exploring the lifestyles of neurotic and conscientious individuals. As a result, new links to the causes of Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, could possibly be revealed and studied in greater detail.
The aforementioned scientific study was reported in a peer-reviewed research paper posted in the journal Biological Psychiatry, and is titled “Personality associations with amyloid and tau: Results from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging and meta-analysis”. Throughout the first section of this publication, a general background involving the five personality types, along with their theorized link to dementia, is briefly explained. However, the nature of the Baltimore Aging study is displayed in greater detail. Older adults, free of dementia and other major diseases, were the only individuals that participated. The research team describes how one “PET” brain scan was taken for tau and amyloid proteins, within a year of the personality self-assessment. The tau PET scans involved the F-AV-1451 radiotracer to look for the protein, while the amyloid scans used the PiB compound, over a seventy minute duration. In a visual table, the paper reports the results of the study, which included higher measured volumes of tau and amyloid proteins in participants that were identified with neuroticism. Finally, the paper expands on important limitations of the study, and how it could improve in the future. This includes utilizing a wider and more diverse sample group, as well as more extensive studies of the tau protein, combined with observer ratings. This could produce more accurate results, and allow for the underlying causes of Alzheimer’s to be better understood. These findings also referenced and reviewed twelve existing studies involving dementia and personality, allowing the information conveyed to be more precise.
Many discrepancies, similarities, and unique aspects can be found when viewing both the research paper and Vanessa Chalmer’s article. For instance, the paper’s abstract and content of the article can be specifically compared. Both pieces of text include a brief background, method, and results that catch the reader’s attention and use simple terminology. Although the abstract delved deeper into “positron emission tomography” (PET) brain scans, it sums up the study in a coherent way, allowing the reader to focus deeper on the research paper if desired. The research paper, which was relatively easy to find after reading the New York Post article, had more notable differences than the abstract. As an example, specific measurements such as confidence intervals, length of brain scanning, and protein volumes were all used as supporting evidence for the discovery, and were not located in the article. Furthermore, the previously mentioned limitations are crucial to understanding the trustworthiness of the study, and were not published in the brief article. Aside from this, similarities were present as well. These included extensive descriptions of the five main personality types, as well as how they can give insight into an individual’s lifestyle. All of these similarities and differences between the article, abstract and paper itself did not take away from the study being described. This instance of scientific advancement allows for new theories to be made involving the prevention or treatment of Alzheimer’s in the future.
Works Cited
Chalmers, Vanessa. “Scientists Pinpoint Personality Traits That Increase Risk of Alzheimer’s.” New York Post, New York Post, 1 Nov. 2021, https://nypost.com/2021/10/28/scientists-pinpoint-personality-traits-that-increase-risk-of-alzheimers/.
Terracciano, Antonio, et al. “Personality Associations with Amyloid and Tau: Results from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging and Meta-Analysis.” Biological Psychiatry, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2021.08.021.
