Current Understanding of Verbal Fluency in Alzheimer’s Disease: Evidence to Date

Wright, Laura; Marco, Matteo De; Venneri, Annalena

doi:10.2147/prbm.s284645

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 129 publications

(169 reference statements)

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“…The two studies evaluating language found a positive association with PNS activity [66,73]. This is consonant with the sparse cross-sectional literature (e.g., [121,122]), and unsurprising since the category fluency and Mill Hill tests also rely upon executive control [83][84][85]123]. To better clarify the association between HRV and language, it could be useful to employ language tests, like the Boston Naming Test, that would seem to be less dependent on executive functioning [124].…”

Section: Languagementioning

confidence: 69%

“…Two studies [ 69 , 74 ] computed composite test scores for episodic memory and executive functioning. The cognitive tests used to evaluate global and domain-specific cognition are shown in Table 2 and are in accordance with the standard neuropsychological literature [ 78 , 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 , 83 , 84 , 85 ]. As can be seen, the two language tests also gauged executive functioning due to the close relationship between these two domains [ 86 ].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Heart Rate Variability and Cognition: A Narrative Systematic Review of Longitudinal Studies

Nicolini,

Malfatto,

Lucchi

2024

JCM

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Background: Heart rate variability (HRV) is a reliable and convenient method to assess autonomic function. Cross-sectional studies have established a link between HRV and cognition. Longitudinal studies are an emerging area of research with important clinical implications in terms of the predictive value of HRV for future cognition and in terms of the potential causal relationship between HRV and cognition. However, they have not yet been the objective of a systematic review. Therefore, the aim of this systematic review was to investigate the association between HRV and cognition in longitudinal studies. Methods: The review was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The Embase, PsycINFO and PubMed databases were searched from the earliest available date to 26 June 2023. Studies were included if they involved adult human subjects and evaluated the longitudinal association between HRV and cognition. The risk of bias was assessed with the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale for Cohort Studies. The results were presented narratively. Results: Of 14,359 records screened, 12 studies were included in this systematic review, with a total of 24,390 participants. Two thirds of the studies were published from 2020 onwards. All studies found a longitudinal relationship between HRV and cognition. There was a consistent association between higher parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity and better cognition, and some association between higher sympathetic nervous system activity and worse cognition. Also, higher PNS activity persistently predicted better executive functioning, while data on episodic memory and language were more scant and/or controversial. Conclusions: Our results support the role of HRV as a biomarker of future cognition and, potentially, as a therapeutic target to improve cognition. They will need confirmation by further, more comprehensive studies also including unequivocal non-HRV sympathetic measures and meta-analyses.

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Section: Languagementioning

confidence: 69%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heart Rate Variability and Cognition: A Narrative Systematic Review of Longitudinal Studies

Nicolini,

Malfatto,

Lucchi

2024

JCM

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“…Our finding of reduced category fluency but not letter fluency performance in MCI progressors relative to nonprogressors thus points to the underlying semantic nature of the deficit. It is also worth noting that other methods, such as a phonemic/category discrepancy score, have proven useful in distinguishing semantic from executive components of verbal fluency (Marra et al, 2021; Wright et al, 2023b), and may be more operational in clinical practice.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An examination of semantic performance in mild cognitive impairment progressors and nonprogressors.

Delage,

Rouleau,

Akzam-Ouellette

et al. 2024

Neuropsychology

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Objective: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a risk factor for developing Alzheimer's disease (AD), and about half of older people with MCI will progress to AD within the next 5 years. The aim of the present study was to compare the semantic performance of MCI progressors (MCI-p) and nonprogressors (MCI-np). The hypothesis was that MCI-p would present with poorer semantic performance relative to MCI-np at baseline, indicating that semantic deficits may increase the risk of future decline toward AD. Method: Fifty-six MCI participants (aged 65-89) from the Consortium for Early Identification of Alzheimer's Disease-Quebec study were analyzed, with 18 progressing and 38 remaining stable over 2 years. Analysis of covariance assessed their initial semantic and nonsemantic cognitive performance, and mixed analyses of variance gauged longitudinal patterns of cognitive decline at the 2-year follow-up. Results: In the semantic domain, MCI-p performed significantly worse than MCI-np at baseline on two semantic tests (category fluency and object decision). In other cognitive domains, MCI-p performed worse than MCI-np on a test of executive functions (cognitive flexibility) but showed similar performance on a test of episodic memory. There were no significant differences between groups in the rates of progression on semantic tests over the 2-year period, but a steeper decline was observed in MCI-p at follow-up on tests of global cognition, episodic memory, and processing speed. Conclusion: This suggest that MCI patients who present with semantic memory impairment in addition to episodic memory impairment are at greater risk of future progression to AD.

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“…Among the cognitive problems caused by dementia, verbal and speech impairments can be easily observed. Therefore, verbal fluency features can serve as a promising diagnostic biomarker 7 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multimodal deep learning for dementia classification using text and audio

Lin,

Washington

2024

Sci Rep

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Dementia is a progressive neurological disorder that affects the daily lives of older adults, impacting their verbal communication and cognitive function. Early diagnosis is important to enhance the lifespan and quality of life for affected individuals. Despite its importance, diagnosing dementia is a complex process. Automated machine learning solutions involving multiple types of data have the potential to improve the process of automated dementia screening. In this study, we build deep learning models to classify dementia cases from controls using the Pitt Cookie Theft dataset from DementiaBank, a database of short participant responses to the structured task of describing a picture of a cookie theft. We fine-tune Wav2vec and Word2vec baseline models to make binary predictions of dementia from audio recordings and text transcripts, respectively. We conduct experiments with four versions of the dataset: (1) the original data, (2) the data with short sentences removed, (3) text-based augmentation of the original data, and (4) text-based augmentation of the data with short sentences removed. Our results indicate that synonym-based text data augmentation generally enhances the performance of models that incorporate the text modality. Without data augmentation, models using the text modality achieve around 60% accuracy and 70% AUROC scores, and with data augmentation, the models achieve around 80% accuracy and 90% AUROC scores. We do not observe significant improvements in performance with the addition of audio or timestamp information into the model. We include a qualitative error analysis of the sentences that are misclassified under each study condition. This study provides preliminary insights into the effects of both text-based data augmentation and multimodal deep learning for automated dementia classification.

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Current Understanding of Verbal Fluency in Alzheimer’s Disease: Evidence to Date

Cited by 7 publications

References 129 publications

Heart Rate Variability and Cognition: A Narrative Systematic Review of Longitudinal Studies

Heart Rate Variability and Cognition: A Narrative Systematic Review of Longitudinal Studies

An examination of semantic performance in mild cognitive impairment progressors and nonprogressors.

Multimodal deep learning for dementia classification using text and audio

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