Methods for assessment of rey auditory verbal learning test performance in memory clinic patients and healthy adults - at the cross-roads of learning theory and clinical utility.

Knowledge is still lacking regarding the preferred method for evaluation of learning in the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT). Validity of different methods was examined by the effect size in differentiating diagnostic stages in memory clinic patients versus healthy adults and the strength of association between RAVLT performance and brain atrophy. The study included individuals with dementia ( = 247), Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI,  = 709), Subjective Cognitive Impairment (SCI,  = 175) and cognitively unimpaired adults serving as healthy controls (HC,  = 102).

Altered empathy processing in frontotemporal dementia A task-based fMRI study.

A lack of empathy, and particularly its affective components, is a core symptom of behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Visual exposure to images of a needle pricking a hand (pain condition) and Q-tips touching a hand (control condition) is an established functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm used to investigate empathy for pain (EFP; pain condition minus control condition). EFP has been associated with increased blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal in regions known to become atrophic in the early stages in bvFTD, including the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate.

Odor Identification Across Time in Mutation Carriers and Non-Carriers in Autosomal-Dominant Alzheimer's Disease.

Background: Impaired odor identification is a characteristic of sporadic Alzheimer'sdisease(AD), but its presence in autosomal-dominantAD (adAD) remains uncertain.

Objective: To investigate odor identification ability in mutation carriers (MC) and non-carriers (NC) of adAD in relation to years to estimated clinical onset clinical onset (YECO) of disease.

Methods: Participants from six families with autosomal-dominant mutations (APP Swedish, APP Arctic, and PSEN1 mutations) included 20 MC and 20 NC.

A biomarker-validated time scale in years of disease progression has identified early- and late-onset subgroups in sporadic Alzheimer's disease.

Background: It is possible to calculate the number of years to the expected clinical onset (YECO) of autosomal-dominant Alzheimer's disease (adAD). A similar time scale is lacking for sporadic Alzheimer's disease (sAD). The purpose was to design and validate a time scale in YECO for patients with sAD in relation to CSF and PET biomarkers.