A pioneering study led by Caltech and Huntington Medical Research Institutes offers new insights into early Alzheimer’s detection through a unique behavioral test, focusing on attention and cognitive processing.
Alzheimer’s disease, primarily affecting people aged 65 and older, impairs memory, thinking, and basic functional abilities. While irreversible, its progression can be slowed with early interventions.
Traditional methods for assessing Alzheimer’s risk, like cerebrospinal fluid tests, are invasive and costly. Hence, there’s a growing need for non-invasive, efficient early screening methods.
The Innovative Behavioral Test
The research team, including Shinsuke Shimojo from Caltech and collaborators from various institutes, developed a behavioral test that correlates with traditional spinal fluid measurements.
This test, involving a computer-based puzzle known as the Stroop Paradigm task, assesses a person’s ability to focus and process distracting stimuli. It’s a non-invasive method that can detect early signs of Alzheimer’s risk.
In this task, participants view a word representing a color but displayed in a different color.
They are asked to identify either the color of the text or the word itself. An additional challenge includes a rapidly flashed “implicit distractor” word, meant to unconsciously distract the participant.
Findings and Implications
The study involved 36 cognitively healthy older adults who underwent comprehensive Alzheimer’s risk assessments, including MRI, genome sequencing, and cerebrospinal fluid tests.
Researchers found that high-risk individuals exhibited a slower response in the presence of the implicit distractor, suggesting altered implicit cognition years before classic Alzheimer’s symptoms appear.
Further research focused on how these individuals used their attention during the task.
It was observed that after practice, low-risk individuals could suppress the distraction, while high-risk individuals processed the distracting information, leading to stronger interference with their performance.
Future Directions
These findings highlight a potential shift in how attention is utilized in individuals at high risk of Alzheimer’s. The results open up new avenues for early Alzheimer’s detection using behavioral tests, focusing on implicit cognition and attention.
This innovative approach could significantly impact how we screen for and understand the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
If you care about Alzheimer’s, please read studies about Vitamin D deficiency linked to Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia, and Oral cannabis extract may help reduce Alzheimer’s symptoms.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies about Vitamin B9 deficiency linked to higher dementia risk, and results showing flavonoid-rich foods could improve survival in Parkinson’s.
The research findings can be found in GeroScience.
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