Parkinson's Disease Cognitive Phenotypes Show Unique Clock Drawing Features when Measured with Digital Technology.

Background: A companion paper (Crowley et al., 2020) reports on the neuroimaging and neuropsychological profiles of statistically determined idiopathic non-dementia Parkinson's disease (PD).

Objective: The current investigation sought to further examine subtle behavioral clock drawing differences within the same PD cohort by comparing 1) PD to non-PD peers on digitally acquired clock drawing latency and graphomotor metrics, and 2) PD memory, executive, and cognitively well phenotypes on the same variables.

Statistically Defined Parkinson's Disease Executive and Memory Cognitive Phenotypes: Demographic, Behavioral, and Structural Neuroimaging Comparisons.

Background: Some individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) experience working memory and inhibitory difficulties, others learning and memory difficulties, while some only minimal to no cognitive deficits for many years.

Objective: To statistically derive PD executive and memory phenotypes, and compare PD phenotypes on disease and demographic variables, vascular risk factors, and specific neuroimaging variables with known associations to executive and memory function relative to non-PD peers.

Methods: Non-demented individuals with PD (n = 116) and non-PD peers (n = 62) were recruited to complete neuropsychology measures, blood draw, and structural magnetic resonance imaging.

Feasibility and Rationale for Incorporating Frailty and Cognitive Screening Protocols in a Preoperative Anesthesia Clinic.

Background: Advanced age, frailty, low education level, and impaired cognition are generally reported to be associated with postoperative cognitive complications. To translate research findings into hospital-wide preoperative assessment clinical practice, we examined the feasibility of implementing a preoperative frailty and cognitive assessment for all older adults electing surgical procedures in a tertiary medical center. We examined associations among age, education, frailty, and comorbidity with the clock and 3-word memory scores, estimated the prevalence of mild to major cognitive impairment in the presurgical sample, and examined factors related to hospital length of stay.

Clock Drawing Performance Slows for Older Adults After Total Knee Replacement Surgery.

Background: Clock drawing is a neurocognitive screening tool used in preoperative settings. This study examined hypothesized changes in clock drawing to command and copy test conditions 3 weeks and 3 months after total knee arthroplasty (TKA) with general anesthesia.

Methods: Participants included 67 surgery and 66 nonsurgery individuals >60 years who completed the digital clock drawing test before TKA (or a pseudosurgery date), and 3 weeks and 3 months postsurgery.

Reliability and Utility of Manual and Automated Estimates of Total Intracranial Volume.

Objectives: Total intracranial volume (TICV) is an important control variable in brain-behavior research, yet its calculation has challenges. Manual TICV (Manual) is labor intensive, and automatic methods vary in reliability. To identify an accurate automatic approach we assessed the reliability of two FreeSurfer TICV metrics (eTIV and Brainmask) relative to manual TICV.

Delayed Recall and Working Memory MMSE Domains Predict Delirium following Cardiac Surgery.

Background: Reduced preoperative cognition is a risk factor for postoperative delirium. The significance for type of preoperative cognitive deficit, however, has yet to be explored and could provide important insights into mechanisms and prediction of delirium.

Objective: Our goal was to determine if certain cognitive domains from the general cognitive screener, the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE), predict delirium after cardiac surgery.

Considering total intracranial volume and other nuisance variables in brain voxel based morphometry in idiopathic PD.

Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) studies of Parkinson's disease (PD), have yielded mixed results, possibly due to several studies not accounting for common nuisance variables (age, sex, and total intracranial volume [TICV]). TICV is particularly important because there is evidence for larger TICV in PD. We explored the influence of these covariates on VBM by 1) comparing PD patients and controls before adding covariates, after adding age and sex, and after adding age, sex and TICV, and 2) by comparing controls split into large and small TICV before and after controlling for TICV, with age and sex accounted for in both analyses.

Marked brain asymmetry with intact cognitive functioning in idiopathic Parkinson's disease: a longitudinal analysis.

Objective: A 71-year-old (MN) with an 11-year history of left onset tremor diagnosed as Parkinson's disease (PD) completed longitudinal brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and neuropsychological testing. MRI scans showed an asymmetric caudate nucleus (right < left volume). We describe this asymmetry at baseline and the progression over time relative to other subcortical gray, frontal white matter, and cortical gray matter regions of interest.

Factors Influencing Clinical Correlates of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE): a Review.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a neuropathologically defined disease reportedly linked to a history of repetitive brain trauma. As such, retired collision sport athletes are likely at heightened risk for developing CTE. Researchers have described distinct pathological features of CTE as well a wide range of clinical symptom presentations, recently termed traumatic encephalopathy syndrome (TES).

Clinical-pathologic study of depressive symptoms and cognitive decline in old age.

Objective: To clarify the relationship between depressive symptoms and the clinical and neuropathologic manifestations of dementia.

Methods: In a clinical-pathologic cohort study, 1,764 older persons without cognitive impairment at enrollment completed annual clinical evaluations for a mean of 7.8 years.

Brainstem aminergic nuclei and late-life depressive symptoms.

Importance: The neurobiologic basis of late-life depressive symptoms is not well understood.

Objective: To test the hypothesis that neurodegeneration and neuronal density in brainstem aminergic nuclei are related to late-life depressive symptoms. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, AND EXPOSURE: Longitudinal clinicopathological cohort study at residences of participants in the Chicago, Illinois, metropolitan area.

Neural reserve, neuronal density in the locus ceruleus, and cognitive decline.

Objective: To test the hypothesis that higher neuronal density in brainstem aminergic nuclei contributes to neural reserve.

Methods: Participants are 165 individuals from the Rush Memory and Aging Project, a longitudinal clinical-pathologic cohort study. They completed a mean of 5.

The natural history of cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease.

The study aim was to describe the temporal course of cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease (AD). We selected 226 persons from 2 longitudinal clinical-pathological studies who were cognitively healthy at baseline, followed at least 4 years (M = 10.2, SD = 3.

Terminal decline in motor function.

The study aim was to test the hypothesis that motor function undergoes accelerated decline proximate to death. As part of a longitudinal clinical-pathologic study, 124 older Roman Catholic nuns, priests, and monks completed at least 7 annual clinical evaluations, died, and underwent brain autopsy and uniform neuropathologic examination. Each evaluation included administration of 11 motor tests and 19 cognitive tests from which global measures of motor and cognitive function were derived.