American Stroke Association, Feb. 5-7

The annual International Stroke Conference of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association was held from Feb. 5 to 7 in Los Angeles and drew participants from around the world, including cerebrovascular research and practice experts. The conference featured presentations that emphasized basic, clinical, and translational medicine and provided insight into the prevention, management, and treatment of stroke.

In one study, Bernard Ofosuhene, of UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, and colleagues identified a strong association between electrocardiogram (ECG)-age and cognitive performance, which could lead to ECG-age serving as a potential biomarker for detecting cognitive decline.

The authors evaluated 63,800 participants between August 2023 and July 2024 as part of the U.K. Biobank, a large and ongoing study of more than 500,000 volunteers in the United Kingdom who enrolled between 2006 and 2010. Participants went through a number of cognitive tests to determine ECG-age. Based on the results, participants were divided into three categories: normal aging; accelerated ECG-aging (older than their chronological age); and decelerated ECG-aging (younger than their chronological age). Compared with the normal-aging group, the researchers found that participants within the decelerated ECG-aging category performed better on six of eight cognitive tests, while those within the accelerated ECG-aging category performed worse on six of eight cognitive tests.

“In conclusion, this research leverages our understanding on how ECG data could be utilized by artificial intelligence as a potential diagnostic tool for cognitive impairment,” Ofosuhene said. “Using ECG data to access cognitive functioning could lead to rapid diagnosis and timely intervention compared to the traditional cognitive tests.”

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In another study, Tamara N. Kimball, M.D., of the Henry and Allison McCance Center for Brain Health at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues found that adopting healthier lifestyles and improving modifiable risk factors might mitigate some of the negative effects of shorter telomeres, which reflect adverse lifestyle choices and social and environmental determinants of health earlier in life.

The authors examined data from more than 356,000 participants as part of the U.K. Biobank and found that individuals with shorter leukocyte telomere length (LTL) had an increased risk for age-related brain diseases, including stroke, dementia, and late-life depression. In addition, improved modifiable risk factor profiles appeared to mitigate the impact of LTL on these diseases.