Publications by authors named "Ronat Lucas"

Introduction: Personality traits and neuropsychiatric symptoms such as neuroticism and depression share genetic overlap and have both been identified as risks factors for development of aging-related neurocognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease (AD). This study aimed to examine revised personality factors derived from the Temperament and Character Inventory, previously shown to be associated with psychiatric disorders, as predictors of neuropsychiatric, cognitive, and brain trajectories of participants from a population-based aging study.

Methods: Mixed-effect linear regression analyses were conducted on data for the full sample ( = 1,286), and a healthy subsample not converting to AD-dementia during 25-year follow-up ( = 1,145), complemented with Cox proportional regression models to determine risk factors for conversion to clinical AD.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Hyperactive neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) (i.e., agitation, disinhibition, and irritability) are among the most challenging symptoms to manage in Alzheimer's disease (AD).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) have been associated with a risk of accelerated cognitive decline or conversion to dementia of the Alzheimer's Disease (AD) type. Moreover, the NPS were also associated with higher AD biomarkers (brain tau and amyloid burden) even in non-demented patients. But the effect of the relationship between NPS and biomarkers on cognitive decline has not yet been studied.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) are common in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and even more in Alzheimer's disease (AD). The symptom-based cluster including nighttime disturbances, depression, appetite changes, anxiety, and apathy (affective and vegetative symptoms) was associated with an increased risk of dementia in MCI and has common neuroanatomical associations. Our objective was to investigate the differences in brain morphology associations with affective and vegetative symptoms between three groups: cognitively normal older adults (CN), MCI and AD.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: The potential impact of sex on cognitive performance in normal aging and participants with Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been outlined previously. Nevertheless, differences in neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) have been also outlined. We aimed to study a potential association between NPS and cognitive performances according to sex, in older individuals with and without cognitive impairment.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: The impact of neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) on cognitive performance has been reported, and this impact was better defined in the aging population. Yet the potential of using the impact of NPS on brain and cognitive performance in a longitudinal setting, as prediction of conversion - have remained questionable. This study proposes to establish a predictive model of conversion to Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) based on current cognitive performance, NPS and their associations with brain morphology.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Selectivity is the rule, rather than the exception, in neurodegenerative disease. A retired telephone operator carrying a C9orf72 expansion developed phonagnosia, a selective impairment of voice recognition, contrasting with intact person knowledge and recognition of faces, as a presenting sign of genetically confirmed fronto-temporal dementia. Since the dysfunction in this patient fell into his area of professional expertise, we discuss if overload in voice related neural networks might have caused failure propagating to connected nodes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Studies on aging and hedonic judgment of odors have never been addressed within the empirical frameworks of age-related changes in emotion which state that advancing age is associated with a reduced negativity bias and a less pronounced differentiation between hedonic valence and emotional intensity judgments. Our aim was to examine and extend these age-related effects into the field of odors. Thirty-eight younger adults and 40 older adults were asked to evaluate the hedonic valence, emotional intensity, and familiarity of 50 odors controlled for their pleasantness.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF