MCI

A conversation at the frontier of digital health innovation, FDA regulations, and cognitive health

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Dig­i­tal Ther­a­peu­tics for MCI and Alzheimer’s dis­ease: A Reg­u­la­to­ry Per­spec­tive (The Jour­nal of Pre­ven­tion of Alzheimer’s Disease):

–This arti­cle is adapt­ed from a com­pre­hen­sive con­ver­sa­tion between Dr. Murali Doraiswamy and Dr. Jef­frey Shuren at the 2021 Clin­i­cal Tri­als on Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (CTAD) con­fer­ence in Boston. Dr. Shuren is a behav­ioral neu­rol­o­gist who has held a vari­ety of lead­er­ship roles at the FDA and CMS, includ­ing as Direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Devices and Radi­o­log­i­cal Health (CDRH).

MD: The CDRH has a flag­ship Dig­i­tal Health Cen­ter of Excel­lence. Can you tell us about it? And can you share your advice for how the Alzheimer’s field can help spur dig­i­tal inno­va­tion? [Read more…] about A con­ver­sa­tion at the fron­tier of dig­i­tal health inno­va­tion, FDA reg­u­la­tions, and cog­ni­tive health

Study: Artificial intelligence program identifies linguistic markers that predict, with 70% accuracy, who gets Alzheimer’s Disease years later

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Fig. 3. Cook­ie-theft pic­ture descrip­tion task (CTT) exam­ples from the Fram­ing­ham Heart Study, includ­ing an unim­paired sam­ple (a), an impaired sam­ple (b), and an even more impaired sam­ple show­ing sig­nif­i­cant mis­spellings and min­i­mal gram­mat­ic com­plex­i­ty ©. Cred­it: Eyigoz et al (2020)

Alzheimer’s Pre­dic­tion May Be Found in Writ­ing Tests (The New York Times):

… the researchers looked at a group of 80 men and women in their 80s — half had Alzheimer’s and the oth­ers did not. But, sev­en and a half years ear­li­er, all had been cog­ni­tive­ly nor­mal. [Read more…] about Study: Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence pro­gram iden­ti­fies lin­guis­tic mark­ers that pre­dict, with 70% accu­ra­cy, who gets Alzheimer’s Dis­ease years later

The new frontier in neurocognitive monitoring and dementia screening: the Apple Watch

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Bio­gen to Launch Pio­neer­ing Study to Devel­op Dig­i­tal Bio­mark­ers of Cog­ni­tive Health Using Apple Watch and iPhone (press release):

Bio­gen Inc. (Nas­daq: BIIB) today announced a new vir­tu­al research study, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Apple, to inves­ti­gate the role Apple Watch and iPhone could play in mon­i­tor­ing cog­ni­tive per­for­mance and screen­ing for decline in cog­ni­tive health includ­ing mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment (MCI). [Read more…] about The new fron­tier in neu­rocog­ni­tive mon­i­tor­ing and demen­tia screen­ing: the Apple Watch

Anticholinergic drugs found to significantly increase risk of cognitive decline, especially among those with Alzheimer’s Disease biomarkers or genetic predisposition

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Com­mon Class of Drugs Linked to Increased Risk of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (UC San Diego release):

A team of sci­en­tists, led by researchers at Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia San Diego School of Med­i­cine, report that a class of drugs used for a broad array of con­di­tions, from aller­gies and colds to hyper­ten­sion and uri­nary incon­ti­nence, may be asso­ci­at­ed with an increased risk of cog­ni­tive decline, par­tic­u­lar­ly in old­er adults at greater risk for Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD) … cog­ni­tive­ly nor­mal study par­tic­i­pants who were tak­ing at least one anti­cholin­er­gic drug at base­line were 47 per­cent more like­ly to devel­op mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment (MCI), often a pre­cur­sor to demen­tia such as AD, while being tracked over a peri­od of up to a decade com­pared to par­tic­i­pants who did not take such drugs. [Read more…] about Anti­cholin­er­gic drugs found to sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase risk of cog­ni­tive decline, espe­cial­ly among those with Alzheimer’s Dis­ease bio­mark­ers or genet­ic predisposition

Brain scans show lower accumulation of tau and amyloid pathology among cognitive “super-agers”

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– Tau (blue) and amy­loid (orange) dis­tri­b­u­tion pat­terns for super-agers, nor­mal-agers and MCI patients, when com­pared to a group of younger, healthy, cog­ni­tive­ly nor­mal, amy­loid-neg­a­tive indi­vid­u­als. Cred­it: Mer­le C. Hoenig.

Super-Agers Show Resis­tance to Tau and Amy­loid Accu­mu­la­tion, Main­tain High Cog­ni­tive Func­tion (Soci­ety of Nuclear Med­i­cine and Mol­e­c­u­lar Imag­ing press release):

Super-agers, or indi­vid­u­als whose cog­ni­tive skills are above the norm even at an advanced age, have been found to have increased resis­tance to tau and amy­loid pro­teins, accord­ing to research pre­sent­ed at the Soci­ety of Nuclear Med­i­cine and Mol­e­c­u­lar Imag­ing (SNMMI) 2020 Annu­al Meet­ing. An analy­sis of positron emis­sion tomog­ra­phy (PET) scans has shown that com­pared to nor­mal-agers and those with mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment, super-agers have a low­er bur­den of tau and amy­loid pathol­o­gy asso­ci­at­ed with neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion, which prob­a­bly allows them to main­tain their cog­ni­tive per­for­mance. An image show­ing the com­par­i­son of tau and amy­loid dis­tri­b­u­tion pat­terns in these dif­fer­ent cog­ni­tive aging tra­jec­to­ries has been select­ed as SNMMI’s 2020 Image of the Year. [Read more…] about Brain scans show low­er accu­mu­la­tion of tau and amy­loid pathol­o­gy among cog­ni­tive “super-agers”

Study: Practice effect due to repeated testing can delay detection of cognitive impairment and dementia

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Prac­tice Imper­fect: Repeat­ed Cog­ni­tive Test­ing Can Obscure Ear­ly Signs of Demen­tia (UC San Diego Health press release):

“Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD) is a pro­gres­sive, neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive con­di­tion that often begins with mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment or MCI, mak­ing ear­ly and repeat­ed assess­ments of cog­ni­tive change cru­cial to diag­no­sis and treatment.

But in a paper pub­lished online in the jour­nal Alzheimer’s & Demen­tia: Diag­no­sis, Assess­ment & Dis­ease Mon­i­tor­ing, a team of researchers led by sci­en­tists at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia San Diego School of Med­i­cine found that repeat­ed test­ing of mid­dle-age men pro­duced a “prac­tice effect” which obscured true cog­ni­tive decline and [Read more…] about Study: Prac­tice effect due to repeat­ed test­ing can delay detec­tion of cog­ni­tive impair­ment and dementia