CDR Orientation score as an excellent predictor of the progression to AD in amnestic MCI individuals

Background: Amyloid PET allows for the assessment of amyloid β status in the brain, distinguishing true Alzheimer’s disease from Alzheimer’s disease-mimicking conditions. Around 15–20% of patients with clinically probable Alzheimer’s disease have been found to have no significant Alzheimer’s pathology on amyloid PET. However, a limited number of studies had been conducted this subpopulation in terms of clinical progression. Objective: We investigated the risk factors that could affect the progression to dementia in patients with amyloid-negative amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Methods: This study was a single-institutional, retrospective cohort study of patients over the age of 50 with amyloidnegative amnestic MCI who visited the memory clinic of Asan Medical Center with a follow-up period of more than 36 months. All participants underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), detailed neuropsychological testing, and fluorine-18[F18]-florbetaben amyloid PET. Results: During the follow-up period, 39 of 107 patients progressed to dementia from amnestic MCI. In comparison with the stationary group, the progressed group had a more severe impairment in verbal and visual episodic memory function and hippocampal atrophy, which showed an Alzheimer’s disease-like pattern despite the lack of evidence for significant Alzheimer’s disease pathology. Voxel-based morphometric MRI analysis revealed that the progressed group had a reduced gray matter volume in the bilateral cerebellar cortices, right temporal cortex, and bilateral insular cortices. Conclusion: Considering the lack of evidence of amyloid pathology, clinical progression of these subpopulation may be caused by other neuropathologies such as TDP-43, abnormal tau or alpha synuclein that lead to neurodegeneration independent of amyloid-driven pathway. Further prospective studies incorporating biomarkers of Alzheimer’s diseasemimicking dementia are warranted.

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Patients with amnestic MCI Fail to Adapt Executive Control When Repeatedly Tested with Semantic Verbal Fluency Tasks

Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society ◽

10.1017/s1355617721000849 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-8

Author(s):

Johannes Tröger ◽

Hali Lindsay ◽

Mario Mina ◽

Nicklas Linz ◽

Stefan Klöppel ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Executive Control ◽

Verbal Fluency ◽

Fixed Time ◽

Semantic Space ◽

Semantic Knowledge ◽

Semantic Verbal Fluency ◽

Amnestic Mci ◽

Retrieval Processes ◽

Theoretical View ◽

First Time

Abstract Objective: Semantic verbal fluency (SVF) tasks require individuals to name items from a specified category within a fixed time. An impaired SVF performance is well documented in patients with amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI). The two leading theoretical views suggest either loss of semantic knowledge or impaired executive control to be responsible. Method: We assessed SVF 3 times on 2 consecutive days in 29 healthy controls (HC) and 29 patients with aMCI with the aim to answer the question which of the two views holds true. Results: When doing the task for the first time, patients with aMCI produced fewer and more common words with a shorter mean response latency. When tested repeatedly, only healthy volunteers increased performance. Likewise, only the performance of HC indicated two distinct retrieval processes: a prompt retrieval of readily available items at the beginning of the task and an active search through semantic space towards the end. With repeated assessment, the pool of readily available items became larger in HC, but not patients with aMCI. Conclusion: The production of fewer and more common words in aMCI points to a smaller search set and supports the loss of semantic knowledge view. The failure to improve performance as well as the lack of distinct retrieval processes point to an additional impairment in executive control. Our data did not clearly favour one theoretical view over the other, but rather indicates that the impairment of patients with aMCI in SVF is due to a combination of both.

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Quantitative Measurement of Macromolecular Tissue Properties in White and Gray Matter in Healthy Aging and Amnestic MCI

NeuroImage ◽

10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118161 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 118161

Author(s):

Elveda Gozdas ◽

Hannah Fingerhut ◽

Hua Wu ◽

Jennifer L. Bruno ◽

Lauren Dacorro ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Gray Matter ◽

Healthy Aging ◽

Quantitative Measurement ◽

Tissue Properties ◽

Amnestic Mci

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Repetition Priming in Individuals with Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s Dementia: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Neuropsychology Review ◽

10.1007/s11065-021-09504-5 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Liselotte De Wit ◽

Vitoria Piai ◽

Pilar Thangwaritorn ◽

Brynn Johnson ◽

Deirdre O’Shea ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Systematic Review ◽

Older Adults ◽

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

Repetition Priming ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Healthy Older Adults ◽

Amnestic Mci ◽

Standard Mean Difference ◽

Priming Paradigm

AbstractThe literature on repetition priming in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is inconsistent, with some findings supporting spared priming while others do not. Several factors may explain these inconsistencies, including AD severity (e.g., dementia vs. Mild Cognitive Impairment; MCI) and priming paradigm-related characteristics. This systematic review and meta-analysis provides a quantitative summary of repetition priming in AD. We examined the between-group standard mean difference comparing repetition priming in AD dementia or amnestic MCI (aMCI; presumably due to AD) to controls. Thirty-two studies were selected, including 590 individuals with AD dementia, 267 individuals with amnestic MCI, and 703 controls. Our results indicated that both individuals with aMCI and AD dementia perform worse on repetition priming tasks than cognitively older adults. Paradigm-related moderators suggested that the effect size between studies comparing the combined aMCI or AD dementia group to cognitively healthy older adults was the highest for paradigms that required participants to produce, rather than identify, primes during the test phase. Our results further suggested that priming in AD is impaired for both conceptual and perceptual priming tasks. Lastly, while our results suggested that priming in AD is impaired for priming tasks that require deep processing, we were unable to draw firm conclusions about whether priming is less impaired in aMCI or AD dementia for paradigms that require shallow processing.

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An Examination of Semantic Impairment in Amnestic MCI and AD: What Can We Learn From Verbal Fluency?

Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology ◽

10.1093/arclin/acz018 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 35 (1) ◽

pp. 22-30

Author(s):

M -J Chasles ◽

A Tremblay ◽

F Escudier ◽

A Lajeunesse ◽

S Benoit ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Repeated Measures ◽

Verbal Fluency ◽

Memory Impairment ◽

Neuropsychological Test ◽

Semantic Fluency ◽

Future Studies ◽

Amnestic Mci ◽

Increased Risk ◽

Subject Factor ◽

Study Participants

Abstract Introduction The Verbal Fluency Test (VF) is commonly used in neuropsychology. Some studies have demonstrated a marked impairment of semantic VF compared to phonemic VF in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Since amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI) is associated with increased risk of conversion to incident AD, it is relevant to examine whether a similar impairment is observed in this population. The objective of the present empirical study is to compare VF performance of aMCI patients to those of AD and elderly controls matched one-to-one for age and education. Method Ninety-six participants divided into three equal groups (N = 32: AD, aMCI and Controls) were included in this study. Participants in each group were, on average, 76 years of age and had 13 years of education. A repeated measures ANOVA with the Group (AD, aMCI, NC) as between-subject factor and the Fluency condition (“P” and “animals”) as within-subject factor was performed. T-tests and simple ANOVAs were also conducted to examine the interaction. Results There was a significant interaction between the groups and the verbal fluency condition. In AD, significantly fewer words were produced in both conditions. In contrast, participants with aMCI demonstrated a pattern similar to controls in the phonemic condition, but generated significantly fewer words in the semantic condition. Conclusion These results indicate a semantic memory impairment in aMCI revealed by a simple, commonly-used neuropsychological test. Future studies are needed to investigate if semantic fluency deficits can help predict future conversion to AD.

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Facial emotion recognition and its relationship to cognition and depressive symptoms in patients with Parkinson's disease

International Psychogeriatrics ◽

10.1017/s104161021600034x ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 28 (7) ◽

pp. 1165-1179 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

J. Pietschnig ◽

L. Schröder ◽

I. Ratheiser ◽

I. Kryspin-Exner ◽

M. Pflüger ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Depressive Symptoms ◽

Emotion Recognition ◽

Recognition Performance ◽

Neuropsychological Test ◽

Test Battery ◽

Facial Emotion Recognition ◽

Facial Emotion ◽

Healthy Controls ◽

Amnestic Mci ◽

Cognitively Intact

ABSTRACTBackground:Impairments in facial emotion recognition (FER) have been detected in patients with Parkinson disease (PD). Presently, we aim at assessing differences in emotion recognition performance in PD patient groups with and without mild forms of cognitive impairment (MCI) compared to healthy controls.Methods:Performance on a concise emotion recognition test battery (VERT-K) of three groups of 97 PD patients was compared with an age-equivalent sample of 168 healthy controls. Patients were categorized into groups according to two well-established classifications of MCI according to Petersen's (cognitively intact vs. amnestic MCI, aMCI, vs. non-amnestic MCI, non-aMCI) and Litvan's (cognitively intact vs. single-domain MCI, sMCI, vs. multi-domain MCI, mMCI) criteria. Patients and controls underwent individual assessments using a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery examining attention, executive functioning, language, and memory (Neuropsychological Test Battery Vienna, NTBV), the Beck Depression Inventory, and a measure of premorbid IQ (WST).Results:Cognitively intact PD patients and patients with MCI in PD (PD-MCI) showed significantly worse emotion recognition performance when compared to healthy controls. Between-groups effect sizes were substantial, showing non-trivial effects in all comparisons (Cohen's ds from 0.31 to 1.22). Moreover, emotion recognition performance was higher in women, positively associated with premorbid IQ and negatively associated with age. Depressive symptoms were not related to FER.Conclusions:The present investigation yields further evidence for impaired FER in PD. Interestingly, our data suggest FER deficits even in cognitively intact PD patients indicating FER dysfunction prior to the development of overt cognitive dysfunction. Age showed a negative association whereas IQ showed a positive association with FER.

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