Publications by authors named "Nick Taptiklis"

Background: Cognitive symptoms are an underrecognized aspect of depression that are often untreated. High-frequency cognitive assessment holds promise for improving disease and treatment monitoring. Although we have previously found it feasible to remotely assess cognition and mood in this capacity, further work is needed to ascertain the optimal methodology to implement and synthesize these techniques.

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Sleep deprivation and poor sleep quality are significant societal challenges that negatively impact individuals' health. The interaction between subjective sleep quality, objective sleep measures, physical and cognitive performance, and their day-to-day variations remains poorly understood. Our year-long study of 20 healthy individuals, using subcutaneous electroencephalography, aimed to elucidate these interactions, assessing data stability and participant satisfaction, usability, well-being and adherence.

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Despite the functional impact of cognitive deficit in people with psychosis, objective cognitive assessment is not typically part of routine clinical care. This is partly due to the length of traditional assessments and the need for a highly trained administrator. Brief, automated computerised assessments could help to address this issue.

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Introduction: Biomarkers of mental effort may help to identify subtle cognitive impairments in the absence of task performance deficits. Here, we aim to detect mental effort on a verbal task, using automated voice analysis and machine learning.

Methods: Audio data from the digit span backwards task were recorded and scored with automated speech recognition using the online platform NeuroVocalix, yielding usable data from 2,764 healthy adults (1,022 male, 1,742 female; mean age 31.

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Background: Digital measures offer an unparalleled opportunity to create a more holistic picture of how people who are patients behave in their real-world environments, thereby establishing a better connection between patients, caregivers, and the clinical evidence used to drive drug development and disease management. Reaching this vision will require achieving a new level of co-creation between the stakeholders who design, develop, use, and make decisions using evidence from digital measures.

Summary: In September 2022, the second in a series of meetings hosted by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health Biomarkers Consortium, and sponsored by Wellcome Trust, entitled "Reverse Engineering of Digital Measures," was held in Zurich, Switzerland, with a broad range of stakeholders sharing their experience across four case studies to examine how patient centricity is essential in shaping development and validation of digital evidence generation tools.

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Background: More sensitive and less burdensome efficacy end points are urgently needed to improve the effectiveness of clinical drug development for Alzheimer disease (AD). Although conventional end points lack sensitivity, digital technologies hold promise for amplifying the detection of treatment signals and capturing cognitive anomalies at earlier disease stages. Using digital technologies and combining several test modalities allow for the collection of richer information about cognitive and functional status, which is not ascertainable via conventional paper-and-pencil tests.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study contrasts traditional app-based research methods by adopting a participant-centric approach that includes more intensive engagement through high-friction tasks and the use of wearable sensors to collect data on stress and health symptoms.
  • - Conducted between May and November 2020 with 365 US frontline healthcare workers, the study demonstrated high retention and data adherence rates, with over 81% of participants completing the study over four months.
  • - The findings suggest that building trust and offering support can enhance participant engagement in digital health studies, as evidenced by a high daily engagement with both the app and wearable technology.
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The ability of remote research tools to collect granular, high-frequency data on symptoms and digital biomarkers is an important strength because it circumvents many limitations of traditional clinical trials and improves the ability to capture clinically relevant data. This approach allows researchers to capture more robust baselines and derive novel phenotypes for improved precision in diagnosis and accuracy in outcomes. The process for developing these tools however is complex because data need to be collected at a frequency that is meaningful but not burdensome for the participant or patient.

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Background: Cognitive symptoms are common in major depressive disorder and may help to identify patients who need treatment or who are not experiencing adequate treatment response. Digital tools providing real-time data assessing cognitive function could help support patient treatment and remediation of cognitive and mood symptoms.

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine feasibility and validity of a wearable high-frequency cognitive and mood assessment app over 6 weeks, corresponding to when antidepressant pharmacotherapy begins to show efficacy.

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