New research has found that childhood asthma may take a toll on children’s cognitive development, with early onset of the condition linked to memory deficits. The study, published Monday in JAMA Network Open, analyzed data from more than 2,000 children and showed that those who developed asthma before age 12 had lower scores on tests of episodic memory than their peers without the chronic respiratory condition. For this research, scientists analyzed data from 2,062 children aged 9 to 10 years with asthma to assess how the condition affects episodic memory and other cognitive measures.
Episodic memory, a critical aspect of cognitive function, allows people to remember experiences, events, and emotions. According to the results, children with asthma scored lower on episodic memory tasks than their non-asthmatic peers. In a smaller sample of nearly 500 children tracked over two years, researchers observed that those with an earlier onset of asthma exhibited slower memory development over time.
This study used data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, a large, ongoing research project that began in 2015. The ABCD Study enrolled about 11,800 children aged 9 to 10 years old. Parents reported whether their child had asthma.
Children who had asthma at the beginning of the study and those who developed it later were compared to those who had never had it. Children with asthma at any point in the study were also compared to those without it. Asthmatic childre.