Pre­dict­ing Alzheimer’s Dis­ease More Accu­rate Through Cog­ni­tive Changes Than Bio­mark­ers (Med­ical News):

• “Mea­sur­ing people’s changes in cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties is a bet­ter pre­dic­tor of Alzheimer’s dis­ease than changes in bio­mark­ers, researchers from the Ben­ito Menni Com­plex Assis­ten­cial en Salut Men­tal, Barcelona, Spain, reported in Archives of Gen­eral Psy­chi­a­try, a JAMA journal.”
• “The inves­ti­ga­tors used a range of tests to assess the par­tic­i­pants’ cog­ni­tion and how well they func­tioned. Cog­ni­tion is the men­tal process of know­ing, and includes per­cep­tion, aware­ness, rea­son­ing and judg­ment. They also took cere­brospinal fluid sam­ples from them at the begin­ning of the study and every year for two years. Par­tic­i­pants’ blood sam­ples were also taken when the study began — this was tested for genes which are linked to Alzheimer’s dis­ease. From MRI (mag­netic res­o­nance imag­ing) results included in the ADNI, they were able to gather data on the par­tic­i­pants’ cor­ti­cal thick­ness and brain volume.
• “They found that cor­ti­cal thick­ness of the left mid­dle tem­po­ral lobe of the brain, as well as two mea­sures of delayed mem­ory in those with MCI were linked to a higher like­li­hood of devel­op­ing Alzheimer’s dis­ease within 24 months.
• “Changes in func­tional activ­ity (Editor’s Note: our empha­sis to high­light the need to eval­u­ate changes over time, not just one time activ­ity) scores seemed to show a greater rate of decline in the par­tic­i­pants than changes in biomarkers.”

This is con­sis­tent with one of the most insight­ful ses­sions held dur­ing the 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit, on The Role of Cog­ni­tive Health Mon­i­tor­ing Sys­tems (requires reg­is­tra­tion to view): A miss­ing piece in today’s brain health toolkit is the capa­bil­ity to mon­i­tor a person’s cog­ni­tive per­for­mance and Cog­ni­tive Reserve across the lifes­pan. Such a sys­tem could greatly facil­i­tate the pre­ven­tion, diag­no­sis and treat­ment of cog­ni­tive decline due to aging and dis­ease. Pol­icy, research and tech­nol­ogy strands are con­verg­ing to bet­ter define and meet this need: Which instru­ments, plat­forms and ana­lyt­i­cal approaches could pro­vide the data and out­comes required? How will behav­ioral mark­ers com­ple­ment bio­log­i­cal and neu­roimag­ing mark­ers? How may cog­ni­tive mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems be devel­oped, mar­keted and used?

• Dr. Yaakov Stern, Head Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Divi­sion of the Taub Insti­tute, Colum­bia University
• Dr. David Darby, Chief Med­ical Offi­cer, CogState
• Dr. Jef­frey Kaye, Direc­tor, NIA — ORCATECH
• Mod­er­ated by: Dr. Joshua Stein­er­man, Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor, Albert Ein­stein Col­lege of Medicine

To learn more about the 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit (record­ings are now avail­able): click Here.

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