Age is Associated with Dampened Circadian Patterns of Rest and Activity: The Study of Muscle, Mobility and Aging (SOMMA).

Background: Aging is associated with declines in circadian functions. The effects of aging on circadian patterns of behavior are insufficiently described. We characterized age-specific features of rest-activity rhythms (RAR) in community dwelling older adults, both overall, and in relation, to sociodemographic characteristics. Methods: We analyzed baseline assessments of older adults with wrist-worn free-living wrist-worn actigraphy data (N=820, Age=76.4 yrs, 58.2% women) participating in the Study of Muscle, Mobility and Aging (SOMMA). We applied an extension to the traditional cosine curve to map RAR to activity data, calculating the parameters: rhythmic strength (amplitude); robustness (pseudo-F statistic); and timing of peak activity (acrophase). We also used function principal component analysis to determine 4 components describing underlying patterns of activity accounting for RAR variance. Linear models were used to examine associations between RAR and sociodemographic variables. Results: Age was associated with several metrics of dampened RAR; women had stronger and more robust RAR metrics vs. men (all Conclusions: Older age was associated with dampened circadian behavior; and behaviors were sexually dimorphic. We identified a behavioral phenotype characterized by early time-of-day of peak activity, high rhythmic amplitude, and more total activity.