Neuroimaging Insights into Subjective Cognitive Decline: Differential Sensitivity of Cognitive Change Index and Everyday Cognition Scale

Abstract

IntroductionCognitively healthy older adults may experience self-perceived memory and cognitive deficits, known as subjective cognitive decline (SCD), increasing their risk for dementia- related brain and cognitive changes. This study investigated if questions from the Cognitive Change Index (CCI) and Everyday Cognition Scale (ECog) show similar associations with dementia-related changes.MethodsCognitively healthy older adults (n=332) from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative were included. Partial-least-squares observed the latent variables (LVs) that maximize the relationship between the two questionnaires.ResultsTwo LVs (p’s<0.001) explained 85.89% and 8.30% of the cross-block covariance. In the first LV, several CCI questions correlated with older age and frontal, parietal, and temporal WMHs, lower hippocampal and entorhinal cortex volume, and larger ventricles. The second LV showed younger individuals with higher SCD scores on three CCI questions correlated with temporal and parietal WMHs and entorhinal cortex volumes.ConclusionMore questions from the CCI are associated with neuroimaging markers, unlike the ECog questions. These questionnaires may thus be measuring different neural decline patterns and may be sensitive to different etiologies.