Study: Cognitive Markers or Biomarkers to manage Cognitive Health across the Lifespan?

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.

2 Comments

  1. Sunny Yadav on September 29, 2011 at 2:15

    This is very fine blog. I got mean­ing­ful infor­ma­tion from this study. Keep it up.



  2. john on September 29, 2011 at 4:59

    great web­site and use­ful info



About SharpBrains

SHARPBRAINS is an independent think-tank and consulting firm providing services at the frontier of applied neuroscience, health, leadership and innovation.
SHARPBRAINS es un think-tank y consultoría independiente proporcionando servicios para la neurociencia aplicada, salud, liderazgo e innovación.

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