It is now well established that vascular aging is a significant predictor of cognitive decline in older age. But what remains less clear is the role that vascular health plays in social cognitive aging. Therefore, we aimed to provide the first test of the relationship between arterial stiffness and theory of mind (ToM) in late adulthood. In a sample of 50 healthy older adults (Age: M = 70.08, SD = 3.93), we measured arterial stiffness via carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity and social cognition using two well validated measures of ToM (RMET, TASIT). The results revealed that arterial stiffness was a significant predictor of ToM performance when indexed via the RMET and the TASIT, accounting for 11% and 9% of unique variance in scores, respectively. These findings add to the broader literature showing that arterial stiffness is a key predictor of cognitive aging and show that this relationship extends to the domain of social cognition.
Keywords: Arterial stiffness; Pulse wave velocity; Theory of mind; Vascular aging.
© 2025. The Author(s).