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Review
. 2013 Nov 21;5(6):58.
doi: 10.1186/alzrt222. eCollection 2013.

Promising developments in neuropsychological approaches for the detection of preclinical Alzheimer's disease: a selective review

Dorene M Rentz  1 , Mario A Parra Rodriguez  2 , Rebecca Amariglio  1 , Yaakov Stern  3 , Reisa Sperling  1 , Steven Ferris  4
Affiliations
Review

Promising developments in neuropsychological approaches for the detection of preclinical Alzheimer's disease: a selective review

Dorene M Rentz et al. Alzheimers Res Ther. .

Abstract

Recently published guidelines suggest that the most opportune time to treat individuals with Alzheimer's disease is during the preclinical phase of the disease. This is a phase when individuals are defined as clinically normal but exhibit evidence of amyloidosis, neurodegeneration and subtle cognitive/behavioral decline. While our standard cognitive tests are useful for detecting cognitive decline at the stage of mild cognitive impairment, they were not designed for detecting the subtle cognitive variations associated with this biomarker stage of preclinical Alzheimer's disease. However, neuropsychologists are attempting to meet this challenge by designing newer cognitive measures and questionnaires derived from translational efforts in neuroimaging, cognitive neuroscience and clinical/experimental neuropsychology. This review is a selective summary of several novel, potentially promising, approaches that are being explored for detecting early cognitive evidence of preclinical Alzheimer's disease in presymptomatic individuals.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Example of Face Name Associative Memory Exam stimuli.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Example of Short Term Memory Binding test stimuli.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Example of Behavioral Pattern Separation-Object task stimuli.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Example of Spatial Pattern Separation task stimuli.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Example of Discrimination and Transfer (DT) task in subjects with hippocampal cortex (HC) damage.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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