Association Between Motor Task Performance and Hippocampal Atrophy Across Cognitively Unimpaired, Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment, and Alzheimer’s Disease Individuals

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Sydney Y. Schaefer ◽  
Michael Malek-Ahmadi ◽  
Andrew Hooyman ◽  
Jace B. King ◽  
Kevin Duff

Hippocampal atrophy is a widely used biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but the cost, time, and contraindications associated with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) limit its use. Recent work has shown that a low-cost upper extremity motor task has potential in identifying AD risk. Fifty-four older adults (15 cognitively unimpaired, 24 amnestic mild cognitive impairment, and 15 AD) completed six motor task trials and a structural MRI. Several measures of motor task performance significantly predicted bilateral hippocampal volume, controlling for age, sex, education, and memory. Thus, this motor task may be an affordable, non-invasive screen for AD risk and progression.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sydney Y Schaefer ◽  
Michael Malek-Ahmadi ◽  
Andrew Hooyman ◽  
Jace B. King ◽  
Kevin Duff

Hippocampal atrophy is a widely used biomarker for Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the cost, time, and contraindications associated with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) limit its use. Recent work has shown that a low-cost upper extremity motor task has potential in identifying AD risk. Fifty-four older adults (15 cognitively unimpaired, 24 amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment, and 15 AD) completed six motor task trials and a structural MRI. Motor task acquisition significantly predicted bilateral hippocampal volume, controlling for age, sex, education, and memory. Thus, this motor task may be an affordable, non-invasive screen for AD risk and progression.


Brain ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 129 (11) ◽  
pp. 2867-2873 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. G. Apostolova ◽  
I. D. Dinov ◽  
R. A. Dutton ◽  
K. M. Hayashi ◽  
A. W. Toga ◽  
...  

2008 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Lonie ◽  
K. M. Tierney ◽  
L. L. Herrmann ◽  
C. Donaghey ◽  
R. E. O'Carroll ◽  
...  

BackgroundThe dual task paradigm (Baddeleyet al.1986; Della Salaet al.1995) has been proposed as a sensitive measure of Alzheimer's dementia, early in the disease process.MethodWe investigated this claim by administering the modified dual task paradigm (utilising a pencil-and-paper version of a tracking task) to 33 patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and 10 with very early Alzheimer's disease, as well as 21 healthy elderly subjects and 17 controls with depressive symptoms. All groups were closely matched for age and pre-morbid intellectual ability.ResultsThere were no group differences in dual task performance, despite poor performance in episodic memory tests of the aMCI and early Alzheimer's disease groups. In contrast, the Alzheimer patients were specifically impaired in the trail-making test B, another commonly used test of divided attention.ConclusionsThe dual task paradigm lacks sensitivity for use in the early differential diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Feng ◽  
Weijie Huang ◽  
Qingqing Meng ◽  
Weijun Hao ◽  
Hongxiang Yao ◽  
...  

Background: Hippocampal atrophy is a characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, alterations in structural connectivity (number of connecting fibers) between the hippocampus and whole brain regions due to hippocampal atrophy remain largely unknown in AD and its prodromal stage, amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI).Methods: We collected high-resolution structural MRI (sMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data from 36 AD patients, 30 aMCI patients, and 41 normal control (NC) subjects. First, the volume and structural connectivity of the bilateral hippocampi were compared among the three groups. Second, correlations between volume and structural connectivity in the ipsilateral hippocampus were further analyzed. Finally, classification ability by hippocampal volume, its structural connectivity, and their combination were evaluated.Results: Although the volume and structural connectivity of the bilateral hippocampi were decreased in patients with AD and aMCI, only hippocampal volume correlated with neuropsychological test scores. However, positive correlations between hippocampal volume and ipsilateral structural connectivity were displayed in patients with AD and aMCI. Furthermore, classification accuracy (ACC) was higher in AD vs. aMCI and aMCI vs. NC by the combination of hippocampal volume and structural connectivity than by a single parameter. The highest values of the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) in every two groups were all obtained by combining hippocampal volume and structural connectivity.Conclusions: Our results showed that the combination of hippocampal volume and structural connectivity (number of connecting fibers) is a new perspective for the discrimination of AD and aMCI.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyung-Ji Kim ◽  
Jae-Hong Lee ◽  
E-nae Cheong ◽  
Sung-Eun Chung ◽  
Sungyang Jo ◽  
...  

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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