Amyloid profile is associated with sleep quality in preclinical but not in prodromal Alzheimer's disease older adults.

Background: Few studies have assessed whether neuropathological markers of AD in the preclinical and prodromal stages are associated with polysomnographic changes and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

Methods: This was a cross-sectional, case-control study of older adults (≥60 years) without relevant clinical and psychiatric comorbidities selected randomly from a cohort of individuals without dementia in a tertiary university hospital in São Paulo, Brazil. They underwent neuropsychological evaluation for clinical diagnosis and were allocated into two samples: cognitively unimpaired (CU) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

Age, but not education, affects social decision-making in the ultimatum game paradigm.

Background:  Social decision-making (SDM) is often studied through gaming paradigms, in which participants allocate resources among themselves and others based on predefined rules. In an adapted version of the ultimatum game (UG), SDM behavior was modulated in response to the degree of fairness of monetary offers and the social context of opponents, designed to generate either prosocial or punishing behaviors.

Objective:  To investigate whether SDM evaluated by the UG is affected by age and schooling, as it is relevant to know whether sociodemographic variables may bias UG results.

Allostatic load measures in older adults with subjective cognitive decline and mild cognitive impairment: A cross-sectional analysis from the Brazilian Memory and Aging Study.

Introduction: An increasing body of research suggests that stress and allostatic load are related to cognitive dysfunction and neurodegeneration.

Objectives: to determine the relationship between allostatic load (AL) and cognitive status in older adults classified with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

Methodology: Using the Brazilian Memory and Aging Study (BRAMS) database, we analyzed data from 57 older adults with SCD and MCI.

Disease Progression in Frontotemporal Dementia and Alzheimer Disease: The Contribution of Staging Scales.

Introduction: There is a shortage of validated instruments to estimate disease progression in frontotemporal dementia (FTD).

Objectives: To evaluate the ability of the FTD Rating Scale (FTD-FRS) to detect functional and behavioral changes in patients diagnosed with the behavioral variant of FTD (bvFTD), primary progressive aphasia (PPA), and Alzheimer disease (AD) after 12 months of the initial evaluation, compared to the Clinical Dementia Rating scale-frontotemporal lobar degeneration (CDR-FTLD) and the original Clinical Dementia Rating scale (CDR).

Methods: The sample consisted of 70 individuals, aged 40+ years, with at least 2 years of schooling, 31 with the diagnosis of bvFTD, 12 with PPA (8 with semantic variant and 4 with non-fluent variant), and 27 with AD.

Profiles of cognitive impairment in the continuum from normal cognition to Alzheimer's clinical syndrome: Contributions of the short-term memory binding tests.

Background: Short-term memory binding (STMB) tests assess conjunctive binding, in which participants should remember the integration of features, such as shapes (or objects) and colors, forming a unique representation in memory. In this study, we investigated two STMB paradigms: change detection (CD) and free recall (FR).

Objective: To investigate the cognitive profile in the CD and FR tasks of three diagnostic groups: cognitively unimpaired (CU), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer's clinical syndrome (ACS).

Free Recall of Bound Information Held in Short-Term Memory is Unimpaired by Age and Education.

Objectives: It has been challenging to identify cognitive markers to differentiate healthy brain aging from neurodegeneration due to Alzheimer's disease (AD) that are not affected by age and education. The Short-Term Memory Binding (STMB) showed not to be affected by age or education when using the change detection paradigm. However, no previous study has tested the effect of age and education using the free recall paradigm of the STMB.

The Accuracy of INECO Frontal Screening in the Diagnosis of Executive Dysfunction in Frontotemporal Dementia and Alzheimer Disease.

Introduction: Executive dysfunction is a common symptom in neurodegenerative disorders and is in need of easy-to-apply screening tools that might identify it. The aims of the present study were to examine some of the psychometric characteristics of the Brazilian version of the INECO frontal screening (IFS), and to investigate its accuracy to diagnose executive dysfunction in dementia and its accuracy to differentiate Alzheimer disease (AD) from the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD).

Methods: Patients diagnosed with bvFTD (n=18) and AD (n=20), and 15 healthy controls completed a neuropsychological battery, the Neuropsychiatric Inventory, the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia, the Clinical Dementia Rating, and the IFS.

Validity and Reliability of the Frontotemporal Dementia Rating Scale (FTD-FRS) for the Progression and Staging of Dementia in Brazilian Patients.

Introduction: Few studies on instruments for staging frontotemporal dementia (FTD) have been conducted.

Objective: The objective of this study was to analyze the factor structure, internal consistency, reliability, and convergent validity of the Brazilian version of the Frontotemporal Dementia Rating Scale (FTD-FRS).

Methods: A total of 97 individuals aged 40 years and above with >2 years' education took part in the study, 31 patients diagnosed with behavioral variant FTD (bvFTD), 8 patients with primary progressive aphasia, 28 with Alzheimer disease, 8 with mild cognitive impairment, and a control group of 22 healthy subjects.

Decision-making in Cognitively Unimpaired Illiterate and Low-educated Older Women: Results on the Iowa Gambling Task.

Objective: This study investigated the pattern of decision-making (DM) on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) in a sample of Portuguese speaking healthy older women in Brazil with limited education: illiterate, 1-2 years, and 3-4 years of schooling.

Methods: Around 164 non-demented community-dwelling women participated in the study. Among them 60 were illiterate, 52 had 1-2 years of schooling and 52 had 3-4 years of schooling.

Prevalence of Cognitive Impairment Without Dementia and Dementia in Tremembé, Brazil.

Background: The prevalence of cognitive impairment is insufficiently determined in developing countries. The aim of this study was to ascertain the prevalence of cognitive impairment without dementia and dementia in community-dwelling elderly in Brazil.

Methods: This was a single-phase cross-sectional survey of the elderly (aged 60 years and above) living in the municipality of Tremembé, Brazil.

Performance of the Visual Analogue Scale of Happiness and of the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia in the Tremembé Epidemiological Study, Brazil.

Unlabelled: Depression is a major growing public health problem. Many population studies have found a significant relationship between depression and the presence of cognitive disorders.

Objective: To establish the correlation between the Visual Analogue Scale of Happiness and the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia in the population aged 60 years or over in the city of Tremembé, state of São Paulo, Brazil.

Prevalence of depressive symptoms among elderly in the city of Tremembé, Brazil: preliminary findings of an epidemiological study.

Unlabelled: Depression is a heterogeneous mental disease classified as a set of disorders, which manifest with a certain duration, frequency and intensity. The prevalence of depression in the elderly ranges from 0.5 to 16%.