Neuropsychiatric symptoms predict rate of change in executive function in Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.

Objective: Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) are considered diagnostic and prognostic indicators of dementia and are attributable to neurodegenerative processes. Little is known about the prognostic value of early NPS on executive functioning (EF) decline in Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD). We examined whether baseline NPS predicted the rate of executive function (EF) decline among older adults with ADRD.

Cognitive aging in rural communities: preliminary memory characterization of a community cohort from Southern Nevada.

Introduction: Rural-dwelling older adults face unique health challenges that may increase risk for Alzheimer's disease and dementia but are underrepresented in aging research. Here, we present an initial characterization of a rural community cohort compared to an urban cohort from the same region.

Methods: Adults over age 50 living in a non-metropolitan area are clinically characterized using the Uniform Data Set, enriched with additional measures of verbal and non-verbal memory measures.

Network analysis of neuropsychiatric symptoms in Alzheimer's disease.

Background: Neuropsychiatric symptoms due to Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) can decrease quality of life for patients and increase caregiver burden. Better characterization of neuropsychiatric symptoms and methods of analysis are needed to identify effective treatment targets. The current investigation leveraged the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center (NACC) Uniform Data Set (UDS) to examine the network structure of neuropsychiatric symptoms among symptomatic older adults with cognitive impairment.

Cognitive-motor dual-task interference in Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and prodromal neurodegeneration: A scoping review.

Background: Cognitive-motor interference (CMI) is a common deficit in Alzheimer's (AD) disease and Parkinson's disease (PD) and may have utility in identification of prodromal neurodegeneration. There is lack of consensus regarding measurement of CMI resulting from dual task paradigms.

Research Question: How are individuals with AD, PD, and prodromal neurodegeneration impacted by CMI as measured by dual-task (DT) performance?

Methods: A systematic literature search was performed in six datasets using the PRISMA guidelines.

A boot camp translation of Alzheimer's disease in Hispanic/Latino communities.

Introduction: Hispanics/Latinos (H/Ls) are significantly underrepresented in Alzheimer's disease (AD) research participant samples. This exclusion limits our interpretation of research findings and understanding of the causes of brain health disparities. The Engaging Communities of Hispanics/Latinos for Aging Research (ECHAR) Network was created to engage, educate, and motivate H/Ls for participation in brain aging research by addressing several barriers to inclusion, including health literacy and AD-related communication.

Network Analysis of Neuropsychiatric Symptoms in Alzheimer's Disease.

Neuropsychiatric symptoms due to Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) can decrease quality of life for patients and increase caregiver burden. Better characterization of neuropsychiatric symptoms and methods of analysis are needed to identify effective treatment targets. The current investigation leveraged the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center (NACC) Uniform Data Set (UDS) to examine the network structure of neuropsychiatric symptoms among symptomatic older adults with cognitive impairment.

Urbanicity and cognitive functioning in later life.

Introduction: Prior research has shown disparities in cognitive functioning across the rural-urban continuum. We examine individual- and contextual-level factors to understand how and why urbanicity shapes cognitive functioning across older adulthood.

Methods: Using a nationally representative sample from 1996 to 2016 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and growth curve models, we assess urban-suburban-exurban differences in older adult cognitive functioning.

Cortical thickness is related to cognitive-motor automaticity and attention allocation in individuals with Alzheimer's disease: a regions of interest study.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by a distinct pattern of cortical thinning and resultant changes in cognition and function. These result in prominent deficits in cognitive-motor automaticity. The relationship between AD-related cortical thinning and decreased automaticity is not well-understood.

Changes in ImPACT Cognitive Subtest Networks Following Sport-Related Concussion.

Objective: High school athletes are administered ImPACT at the start of the academic year or sport season and again after suspected concussion. Concussion management involves the comparison of baseline and post-injury cognitive scores with declines in scores providing evidence for concussive injury. A network framework may provide additional information about post-concussive cognitive changes and expand characterization of sport-related concussion (SRC) recovery.

Latent structure of cognitive tests is invariant in men and women with schizophrenia.

Studies comparing the cognitive functioning of men and women with schizophrenia have produced conflicting results which could arise from sex-based differences in the latent structure of cognitive abilities. The current study used multigroup confirmatory factor analysis to examine invariance in latent structure of cognitive abilities to between men and women with schizophrenia. Confirmatory factor analysis of an initial neurocognitive assessment (men n = 612, women n = 201) and cross-validation using second assessment (men n = 549, women n = 198) demonstrated that a bifactor seven-factor model fit the data best for both men and women.

The Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test: Cross-validation of Mayo Normative Studies (MNS) demographically corrected norms with confidence interval estimates.

Objective: The Mayo Normative Studies (MNS) represents a robust dataset that provides demographically corrected norms for the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test. We report MNS application to an independent cohort to evaluate whether MNS norms accurately adjust for age, sex, and education differences in subjects from a different geographic region of the country. As secondary goals, we examined item-level patterns, recognition benefit compared to delayed free recall, and derived Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT) confidence intervals (CIs) to facilitate clinical performance characterization.

Frontal Metabolites and Alzheimer's Disease Biomarkers in Healthy Older Women and Women Diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Background: Women account for two thirds of the prevalence and incidence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Evidence suggest that sex may differently influence the expression of proteins amyloid-beta (Aβ1-42) and tau, for which early detection is crucial in prevention of the disease.

Objective: We investigated the effect of aging and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels of Aβ1-42 and tau on frontal metabolites measured with proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) in a cohort of cognitively normal older women and women with MCI.

A Novel Way of Measuring Dual-Task Interference: The Reliability and Construct Validity of the Dual-Task Effect Battery in Neurodegenerative Disease.

Background: Decreased automaticity is common among individuals with neurodegenerative disease and is often assessed using dual-task (DT) paradigms. However, the best methods for assessing performance changes related to DT demands remain inconclusive.

Objective: To investigate the reliability and validity of a novel battery of DT measures (DT Effect-Battery (DTE-B)) encompassing three domains: task-specific interference, task prioritization, and automaticity.

The roles of executive functioning, simple attention, and medial temporal lobes in early learning, late learning, and delayed recall.

Fractionating performance of a verbal list-learning test can provide a nuanced interpretation of the relationship between brain networks and learning and memory abilities. Within older adult samples, including those with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease, cortical volumes for attention and executive functioning networks correlate more strongly with neuropsychological performance measures of early learning trials relative to late learning and delayed recall. In contrast, medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures, such as the hippocampus, are more strongly correlated to performance on late learning and delayed recall measures relative to early learning.

Relationships between frontal metabolites and Alzheimer's disease biomarkers in cognitively normal older adults.

Elevated expression of β-amyloid (Aβ) and tau are considered risk-factors for Alzheimer's disease in healthy older adults. We investigated the effect of aging and cerebrospinal fluid levels of Aβ and tau on 1) frontal metabolites measured with proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and 2) cognition in cognitively normal older adults (n = 144; age range 50-85). Levels of frontal gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA+) and myo-inositol relative to creatine (mI/tCr) were predicted by age.

Examination of the reliability and feasibility of two smartphone applications to assess executive functioning in racially diverse older adults.

Inclusion of Black participants in clinical research is a national priority. Mobile applications and remote data collection may increase study access for diverse populations. This study examined the reliability and feasibility of two mobile smartphone application-based cognitive measures in a diverse middle aged and older adult sample.

Bifactor model of cognition in schizophrenia: Evidence for general and specific abilities.

Background: Despite extensive study of cognition in schizophrenia, it remains unclear as to whether cognitive deficits and their latent structure are best characterized as reflecting a generalized deficit, specific deficits, or some combination of general and specific constructs.

Method: To clarify latent structure of cognitive abilities, confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the latent structure of cognitive data collected for the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE) for Schizophrenia study. Baseline assessment data (n = 813) were randomly divided into calibration (n = 413) and cross-validation samples (n = 400).

Rationale and Design of the Emory Healthy Aging and Emory Healthy Brain Studies.

Understanding the relationships between health and aging is essential for delaying morbidity and maximizing independence in aging populations as life expectancies increase. Loss of cognitive function is a feared age-associated condition and growing public health concern. Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common cause of dementia, has no curative therapies.

Subjective Memory Complaints in White and African American Participants.

Objective: Subjective memory complaints (SMCs) are associated with mild cognitive impairment and dementia but are understudied in African Americans (AAs). We compared SMC endorsement in white and AA participants and evaluated predictors of diagnostic progression.

Methods: Initial visit variables, including SMC and memory performance, were compared within a cognitively normal race-matched sample of white and AA participants ( = 912; 456) to assess the presence and predictors of SMC, the predictors of future diagnostic progression, and the change in memory performance over time.

A 'Framingham-like' Algorithm for Predicting 4-Year Risk of Progression to Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment or Alzheimer's Disease Using Multidomain Information.

Background: There are no agreed-upon variables for predicting progression from unimpaired cognition to amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), or from aMCI to Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Objective: Use ADNI data to develop a 'Framingham-like' prediction model for a 4-year period.

Methods: We developed models using the strongest baseline predictors from six domains (demographics, neuroimaging, CSF biomarkers, genetics, cognitive tests, and functional ability).

Phishing suspiciousness in older and younger adults: The role of executive functioning.

Phishing is the spoofing of Internet websites or emails aimed at tricking users into entering sensitive information, with such goals as financial or identity theft. The current study sought to determine whether age is associated with increased susceptibility to phishing and whether tests of executive functioning can predict phishing susceptibility. A total of 193 cognitively intact participants, 91 younger adults and 102 older adults, were primarily recruited through a Psychology department undergraduate subject pool and a gerontology research registry, respectively.

The effects of age on the learning and forgetting of primacy, middle, and recency components of a multi-trial word list.

The serial position effect reveals that recall of a supraspan list of words follows a predictable pattern, whereby words at the beginning (primacy) and end (recency) of a list are recalled more easily than words in the middle. This effect has typically been studied using single list-learning trials, but in neuropsychology, multi-trial list-learning tests are more commonly used. The current study examined trends in learning for primacy, middle, and recency effects across multiple trials in younger and older age cohorts.

The effectiveness and unique contribution of neuropsychological tests and the δ latent phenotype in the differential diagnosis of dementia in the uniform data set.

Objective: Two main approaches to the interpretation of cognitive test performance have been utilized for the characterization of disease: evaluating shared variance across tests, as with measures of severity, and evaluating the unique variance across tests, as with pattern and error analysis. Both methods provide necessary information, but the unique contributions of each are rarely considered. This study compares the 2 approaches on their ability to differentially diagnose with accuracy, while controlling for the influence of other relevant demographic and risk variables.

The Role of Alzheimer's and Cerebrovascular Pathology in Mediating the Effects of Age, Race, and Apolipoprotein E Genotype on Dementia Severity in Pathologically-Confirmed Alzheimer's Disease.

Background: Dementia severity can be modeled as the construct δ, representing the "cognitive correlates of functional status."

Objective: We recently validated a model for estimating δ in the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center's Uniform Data Set; however, the association of δ with neuropathology remains untested.

Methods: We used data from 727 decedents evaluated at Alzheimer's Disease (AD) Centers nationwide.

An Empirical Comparison of Competing Factor Structures for the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status: A Project FRONTIER Study.

The original factor structure of the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) has received little empirical support, but at least eight alternative factor structures have been identified in the literature. The current study used confirmatory factor analysis to compare the original RBANS model with eight alternatives, which were adjusted to include a general factor. Participant data were obtained from Project FRONTIER, an epidemiological study of rural health, and comprised 341 adults (229 women, 112 men) with mean age of 61.