Cumulative blood pressure load and cognitive decline in older adults: An observational analysis of two large cohorts.

Introduction: Cumulative blood pressure metrics may provide greater precision for measuring temporal risk exposure, especially in later life where data are mixed regarding associations of high blood pressure (BP) on cognitive function. We examined the relationship between greater cumulative exposure to high BP in later life and several domains of cognitive function.

Methods: Individual cognitive assessment scores and BP measurements in older adults (age ≥70 years) at baseline and over approximately 8 years of follow-up were available in the population-based Canadian Victoria Longitudinal Study (VLS) and Swedish Gothenburg H70 Birth Cohort Studies (H70).

Impact of a national dementia research consortium: The Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA).

The Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA) was created by the Canadian federal government through its health research funding agency, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), in 2014, as a response to the G7 initiative to fight dementia. Two five-year funding cycles (2014-2019; 2019-2024) have occurred following peer review, and a third cycle (Phase 3) has just begun. A unique construct was mandated, consisting of 20 national teams in Phase I and 19 teams in Phase II (with research topics spanning from basic to clinical science to health resource systems) along with cross-cutting programs to support them.

Homocysteine, neurodegenerative biomarkers, and APOE ε4 in neurodegenerative diseases.

Introduction: Elevated plasma homocysteine (Hcy) is associated with an increased risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases; however, its relationship with the apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele has not been well characterized.

Methods: Participants clinically diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment (AD/MCI), frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson's disease, or cerebrovascular disease were stratified by the presence of the APOE ε4 allele. Volumetric magnetic resonance imaging, plasma amyloid/tau/neurodegeneration biomarkers, and cognitive performance were quantified.

Gender Selectively Mediates the Association Between Sex and Memory in Cognitively Normal Older Adults.

Background And Objectives: Sex and gender are important topics of increasing interest in aging and dementia research. Few studies have jointly examined sex (as a biological attribute) and gender (as a sociocultural and behavioral characteristic) within a single study. We explored a novel data mining approach to include both sex and gender as potentially related influences in memory aging research.

Associated risk and resilience factors of Alzheimer's disease in women with early bilateral oophorectomy: Data from the UK Biobank.

Background: Bilateral oophorectomy (BO) confers immediate estradiol loss. We examined prevalence and predictors of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in women with early BO comparing their odds ratios of AD to those of women with spontaneous menopause (SM).

Methods: A cohort from UK Biobank (n = 34,603) included women aged 60 + at baseline with and without AD who had early BO or SM.

Cognitive Speed in Neurodegenerative Disease: Comparing Mean Rate and Inconsistency Within and Across the Alzheimer's and Lewy Body Spectra in the COMPASS-ND Study.

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Lewy body disease (LBD) are characterized by early and gradual worsening perturbations in speeded cognitive responses.

Objective: Using simple and choice reaction time tasks, we compared two indicators of cognitive speed within and across the AD and LBD spectra: mean rate (average reaction time across trials) and inconsistency (within person variability).

Methods: The AD spectrum cohorts included subjective cognitive impairment (SCI, n = 28), mild cognitive impairment (MCI, n = 121), and AD (n = 45) participants.

Sex-specific neuropsychological correlates of apathy and depression across neurodegenerative disorders.

Background: Apathy and depression are common neuropsychiatric symptoms across neurodegenerative disorders and are associated with impairment in several cognitive domains, yet little is known about the influence of sex on these relationships.

Objectives: We examined the relationship between these symptoms with neuropsychological performance across a combined cohort with mild or major neurodegenerative disorders, then evaluated the impact of sex.

Design, Setting And Participants: We conducted a cohort analysis of participants in the COMPASS-ND study with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), vascular MCI, Alzheimer's disease, mixed dementia, Parkinson's disease, frontotemporal dementia, and cognitively unimpaired (CU) controls.

The Return of Biomarker Results in Research: Balancing Complexity, Precision, and Ethical Responsibility.

Recent research aimed at the discovery, integration, and communication of health outcome measures (or "biomarkers") in Alzheimer's disease has raised challenging questions related to whether, how and when results from these investigations should be disclosed to research participants. Reflecting the apparent heterogeneity of many neurodegenerative diseases, biomarker or other risk factor results are often probabilistic, interactive, multi-modal, and selective. Such characteristics make it very complex to summarize and communicate to clinicians, researchers, and research participants.

Machine learning analyses identify multi-modal frailty factors that selectively discriminate four cohorts in the Alzheimer's disease spectrum: a COMPASS-ND study.

Background: Frailty indicators can operate in dynamic amalgamations of disease conditions, clinical symptoms, biomarkers, medical signals, cognitive characteristics, and even health beliefs and practices. This study is the first to evaluate which, among these multiple frailty-related indicators, are important and differential predictors of clinical cohorts that represent progression along an Alzheimer's disease (AD) spectrum. We applied machine-learning technology to such indicators in order to identify the leading predictors of three AD spectrum cohorts; viz.

A Metabolomics Analysis of a Novel Phenotype of Older Adults at Higher Risk of Dementia.

Background: Older adults presenting with dual-decline in cognition and walking speed face a 6-fold higher risk for dementia compared with those showing no decline. We hypothesized that the metabolomics profile of dual-decliners would be unique even before they show signs of decline in cognition and gait speed.

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine if plasma metabolomics signatures can discriminate dual-decliners from no decliners, purely cognitive decliners, and purely motor decliners prior to decline.

Associations between Differential Aging and Lifestyle, Environment, Current, and Future Health Conditions: Findings from Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging.

Introduction: An aging population will bring a pressing challenge for the healthcare system. Insights into promoting healthy longevity can be gained by quantifying the biological aging process and understanding the roles of modifiable lifestyle and environmental factors, and chronic disease conditions.

Methods: We developed a biological age (BioAge) index by applying multiple state-of-art machine learning models based on easily accessible blood test data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study of Aging (CLSA).

Identifying key multi-modal predictors of incipient dementia in Parkinson's disease: a machine learning analysis and Tree SHAP interpretation.

Background: Persons with Parkinson's disease (PD) differentially progress to cognitive impairment and dementia. With a 3-year longitudinal sample of initially non-demented PD patients measured on multiple dementia risk factors, we demonstrate that machine learning classifier algorithms can be combined with explainable artificial intelligence methods to identify and interpret leading predictors that discriminate those who later converted to dementia from those who did not.

Method: Participants were 48 well-characterized PD patients ( = 71.

Gender specific factors contributing to cognitive resilience in APOE ɛ4 positive older adults in a population-based sample.

Although APOE ɛ4 has been identified as the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's Disease, there are some APOE ɛ4 carriers who do not go on to develop Alzheimer's disease or cognitive impairment. This study aims to investigate factors contributing to this "resilience" separately by gender. Data were drawn from APOE ɛ4 positive participants who were aged 60 + at baseline in the Personality and Total Health Through Life (PATH) Study (N = 341, Women = 46.

Dementia Risk Prediction in a Longitudinal Geriatric Parkinson's Disease Cohort: Evaluation and Application of the Montreal Parkinson Risk of Dementia Scale.

Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) increases risk for dementia and cascading adverse outcomes. The eight-item Montreal Parkinson Risk of Dementia Scale (MoPaRDS) is a rapid, in-office dementia screening tool. We examine predictive validity and other characteristics of the MoPaRDS in a geriatric PD cohort by testing a series of alternative versions and modelling risk score change trajectories.

Bridging Integrator 1 (BIN1, rs6733839) and Sex Are Moderators of Vascular Health Predictions of Memory Aging Trajectories.

Background: A promising risk loci for sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD), Bridging Integrator 1 (BIN1), is thought to operate through the tau pathology pathway.

Objective: We examine BIN1 risk for a moderating role with vascular health (pulse pressure; PP) and sex in predictions of episodic memory trajectories in asymptomatic aging adults.

Methods: The sample included 623 participants (Baseline Mean age = 70.

Data-Driven Analyses of Longitudinal Hippocampal Imaging Trajectories: Discrimination and Biomarker Prediction of Change Classes.

Background: Hippocampal atrophy is a well-known biomarker of neurodegeneration, such as that observed in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Although distributions of hippocampal volume trajectories for asymptomatic individuals often reveal substantial heterogeneity, it is unclear whether interpretable trajectory classes can be objectively detected and used for prediction analyses.

Objective: To detect and predict hippocampal trajectory classes in a computationally competitive context using established AD-related risk factors/biomarkers.

Ageing Together: Interdependence in the Memory Compensation Strategies of Long-Married Older Couples.

People live and age together in social groups. Across a range of outcomes, research has identified interdependence in the cognitive and health trajectories of ageing couples. Various types of memory decline with age and people report using a range of internal and external, social, and material strategies to compensate for these declines.

Development of a Novel Railway Positioning System Using RFID Technology.

Currently, a number of positioning systems are in use to locate trains on the railway network; but these generally have limited precision. Thus, this paper focuses on testing and validating the suitability of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, for aligning vehicles to switch and crossing (S&C) positions on the railway network. This offers the possibility of accurately knowing the position of vehicles equipped with monitoring equipment, such as the network rail track recording vehicle (TRV), and aligning the data with reference to the locations of the S&C (and ideally to key elements within a particular S&C).

Differential Cognitive Decline in Alzheimer's Disease Is Predicted by Changes in Ventricular Size but Moderated by Apolipoprotein E and Pulse Pressure.

Background: Differential cognitive trajectories in Alzheimer's disease (AD) may be predicted by biomarkers from multiple domains.

Objective: In a longitudinal sample of AD and AD-related dementias patients (n = 312), we tested whether 1) change in brain morphometry (ventricular enlargement) predicts differential cognitive trajectories, 2) further risk is contributed by genetic (Apolipoprotein E [APOE] ɛ4+) and vascular (pulse pressure [PP]) factors separately, and 3) the genetic + vascular risk moderates this pattern.

Methods: We applied a dynamic computational approach (parallel process models) to test both concurrent and change-related associations between predictor (ventricular size) and cognition (executive function [EF]/attention).

Subjective memory concerns, poor vascular health, and male sex predict exacerbated memory decline trajectories: An integrative data-driven class and prediction analysis.

Objective: Subjective memory decline (SMD) has been identified as a potential early marker of nonnormal and accelerated cognitive decline. We performed data-driven analyses that integrated trajectory classification with prediction modeling to test declining trajectory class prediction by SMD facets, pulse pressure (PP; i.e.

A Multimodal Risk Network Predicts Executive Function Trajectories in Non-demented Aging.

Multiple modalities of Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk factors may operate through interacting networks to predict differential cognitive trajectories in asymptomatic aging. We test such a network in a series of three analytic steps. First, we test independent associations between three risk scores (functional-health, lifestyle-reserve, and a combined multimodal risk score) and cognitive [executive function (EF)] trajectories.

Data-driven approaches to executive function performance and structure in aging: Integrating person-centered analyses and machine learning risk prediction.

Executive function (EF) performance and structure in nondemented aging are frequently examined with variable-centered approaches. Person-centered analytics can contribute unique information about classes of persons by simultaneously considering EF performance and structure. The risk predictors of these classes can then be determined by machine learning technology.

Comprehensive Serum Lipidomics for Detecting Incipient Dementia in Parkinson's Disease.

While a number of methods are available for analyzing lipids, unbiased untargeted lipidomics with high coverage remains a challenge. In this work, we report a study of isotope-standard-assisted liquid chromatography mass spectrometry lipidomics of serum for biomarker discovery. We focus on Parkinson's disease (PD), a neurodegenerative disorder that often progresses to dementia.

Association of sex differences in dementia risk factors with sex differences in memory decline in a population-based cohort spanning 20-76 years.

Sex differences in late-life memory decline may be explained by sex differences in dementia risk factors. Episodic memory and dementia risk factors were assessed in young, middle-aged and older adults over 12 years in a population-based sample (N = 7485). For men in midlife and old age, physical, cognitive and social activities were associated with less memory decline, and financial hardship was associated with more.