Having a poor score on a simple memory test may be linked to Alzheimer's biomarkers

Date:
February 23, 2022
Source:
American Academy of Neurology
Summary:
Among people with no memory or thinking problems, having a poor
score on a simple memory test may be linked to biomarkers in the
brain associated with Alzheimer's disease as well as very early
signs of memory impairment that precede dementia by several years,
according to a new study.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Among people with no memory or thinking problems, having a poor score on
a simple memory test may be linked to biomarkers in the brain associated
with Alzheimer's disease as well as very early signs of memory impairment
that precede dementia by several years, according to a study published
in the February 23, 2022, online issue of Neurology(R), the medical
journal of the American Academy of Neurology.


========================================================================== "These findings suggest that this test can be used to improve our ability
to detect cognitive decline in the stage before people are diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease," said study author Ellen Grober, PhD, of Albert
Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York. "This could be
helpful in determining who to enroll in clinical trials for prevention
of cognitive decline. It could also help by narrowing down those who
already have signs of Alzheimer's in the brain with a simple test rather
than expensive or invasive scans or lumbar punctures." For the test,
people are shown pictures of items and given cues about the item's
category, such as a picture of grapes with the cue of "fruit." Then participants are asked to remember the items, first on their own, then
with the category cues for any items they did not remember. This type of controlled learning helps with the mild memory retrieval problems that
occur in many healthy elderly people but does not have much impact on
memory for people with dementia, Grober said.

The study involved 4,484 people with no cognitive problems and an average
age of 71. The participants were divided into five groups based on their
scores on the test, or stages zero through four. Stages zero through
two reflect increasing difficulty with retrieving memories or items
learned and precede dementia by five to eight years. In these stages,
people have increasing trouble remembering the items on their own, but
they continue to be able to remember items when given cues. In the third
and fourth stages, people cannot remember all of the items even after
they are given cues. These stages precede dementia by one to three years.

The study participants also had brain scans to look for the beta-amyloid plaques in the brain that are markers of Alzheimer's disease, as well as
to measure the volume of areas of the brain associated with Alzheimer's pathology.

Half of the participants had no memory issues. Half had retrieval issues, issues for storage of memories or both.

The researchers found that people who tested in the third and fourth
stages were likely to have higher amounts of beta-amyloid in their brains
than people in the lower stages. They were also more likely to have a
lower volume in the hippocampus and other areas of the brain associated
with Alzheimer's pathology.

At stage zero, 30% of people had beta-amyloid plaques, compared to 31%
at stage one, 35% at stage two, 40% at stage three and 44% at stage four.

Grober said, "This system allows us to distinguish between the following:
the difficulty people have retrieving memories when they are still able
to create and store memories in their brains, which occurs in the very
early stages before dementia can be diagnosed; and the memory storage
problems that occur later in this predementia phase when people can no
longer store the memories in their brains." A limitation of the study
was that the participants had a high level of education, so the results
may not be applicable to the general population.

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health, Alzheimer's Association, Cure Alzheimer Fund and Leonard and Sylvia Marx Foundation
using publicly available data from the A4 study.

special promotion Explore the latest scientific research on sleep and
dreams in this free online course from New Scientist -- Sign_up_now_>>> ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by American_Academy_of_Neurology. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Ellen Grober, Richard B. Lipton, Reisa A. Sperling, Kathryn V. Papp,
Keith A. Johnson, Dorene M. Rentz, Amy E. Veroff, Paul S. Aisen,
Ali Ezzati. Associations of Stages of Objective Memory Impairment
(SOMI) with Amyloid PET and Structural MRI. Neurology, 2022;
10.1212/ WNL.0000000000200046 DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000200046 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220223164600.htm

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