Childhood Loneliness and Cognitive Decline and Dementia Risk in Middle-Aged and Older Adults

Key Points Question Is childhood loneliness associated with cognitive decline and incident dementia? Findings In this cohort study of 13 592 participants, childhood loneliness was associated with faster cognitive decline and higher risk of incident dementia in middle and later adulthood. Adult loneliness was associated with mediating 8.5% of the association with cognitive decline and 17.2% of the association with dementia risk but did not significantly modify these associations. Meaning These findings suggest that childhood loneliness may serve as an independent risk factor for later-life cognitive decline and dementia, highlighting the need for early interventions to mitigate its long-term implications for cognitive health throughout the life course.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  JAMA Network Open

• Publication date

  2025-09-01

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.31493PMID 40938598PMCID 12432641
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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