Affective reserve: A new reserve concept we should talk about

When talking about "reserve" in psychology, the concept of Cognitive Reserve inevitably comes into mind.Specifically, Cognitive Reserve (CR) has been defined as "the adaptability (i.e., efficiency, capacity, flexibility) of cognitive processes that helps to explain differential susceptibility of cognitive abilities or day-to-day function to brain ageing, pathology, or insult" [1].CR is often referred to as the "software", while the "hardware" would be represented by the concept of 'Brain reserve', i.e., the structural characteristics of the brain such as number of neurons and synapses for which individual variations "allow some people to better cope with brain ageing and pathology than others before clinical or cognitive changes emerge" [1].The main application of the CR theory has been the study of cognitive changes due to neurological diseases, largely neurodegenerative processes resulting in dementia, as well as to healthy ageing, with evidence identifying a positive association between CR and cognitive performance.The present opinion has been inspired by the evidence investigating the interaction between cognitive and affective states and dispositions (i.e., emotion, mood and motivation) [2-4] as well as by the numerous studies showing that affective disorders, such as depression, anxiety and stress related disorders, can represent a risk factor for the development of cognitive decline and dementia [5][6][7].This set of evidence stimulated several reflections about the need to go beyond the CR construct to better understand the variability in both cognition and affect.Hence, this Opinion will propose a new reserve construct, i.e. the Affective Reserve. Affective reserve: Proposing a new definitionAffective Reserve can be defined as the capacity to regulate affective states and dispositions (i.e., emotions, mood, motivation) that helps to explain the differential susceptibility and response to stressful and adverse life events, pathologies, and ageing.Importantly, this is a new definition of Affective Reserve, which in the literature was previously proposed only twice and in the context of ageing.Precisely, in 1998 Gatz [8] suggested a model of late-life depression whereby both genetic and environmental factors contributed to physical and depressive symptoms in older adults, and where fatigue corresponded to low Affective Reserve.Twenty-five years later, Mohindru and colleagues [9] suggested that Affective Reserve would be "the ability (of older adults) to adapt to stressful situations and prevent the impact of emotional distress. . .as a plausible outcome of the age-related positivity effect", i.e., the tendency of older adults to focus more attention on positive information, rather than negative [10].The construct of Affective Reserve, however, should not refer to ageing only, as it might be applicable to other potential causes of changes in affect and cognition, such as pathologies, as well as stressful and adverse life events.