A computerized self test (CST) has been developed that is 96% accurate in diagnosing Alzheimer’s and MCI-A (compared to 71% for the MMSE and 69% for the Mini-Cognitive — tests currently in use). Moreover, the test accurately classified 91% of the six experimental groups (control, MCI, early Alzheimer's, mild to moderate, moderate to severe, and severe) as compared to 54% for the MMSE and 48% for the Mini-Cog. The brief, interactive online test is designed to be used in the primary care setting, where physicians may not have detailed training in recognizing cognitive impairments.
Latest Research News
It’s well established that we are better at recognizing faces of our own racial group, but a new study shows that this ability disappears when we’re mildly intoxicated. The study tested about 140 university students of Western European and east-Asian descent and found that recognition of different-race faces was unaffected by alcohol, yet both groups showed impaired recognition of own-race faces, bringing it down to about the same level of accuracy as for different-race faces. Those given a placebo drink were unaffected.
Several reports have come out in recent years on how recent events replay in the hippocampus, a process thought to be crucial for creating long-term memories. Now a rat study suggests that these replays are not merely echoes of past events, but a dynamic process aimed at improving decision-making. Rather than being solely replays of recent or frequent paths through the maze, the replays were often paths that the rats had rarely taken or, in some cases, had never taken, as if the rats were trying to build maps to help them make better navigation decisions.
A study in which 60 young adult mice were trained on a series of maze exercises designed to challenge and improve their working memory ability (in terms of retaining and using current spatial information), has found that the mice improved their proficiency on a wide range of cognitive tests, and moreover better retained their cognitive abilities into old age.
Like human faces, infants are predisposed to pay attention to words. Now a new study shows that they learn concepts from them from a very early age. In the study, in which 46 three-month-old infants were shown a series of pictures of fish that were paired either with words (e.g., "Look at the toma!") or beeps (carefully matched to the words for tone and duration), those who heard the words subsequently showed signs of having formed the category “fish”, while those who heard the tones did not.
A new test has been developed that measures amyloid-beta oligomers in the cerebrospinal fluid, promising a reliable means of early diagnosis. In a comparison of patients with Alzheimer’s, patients with MCI that later developed into Alzheimer’s, and controls, levels of these protein fragments directly correlated with Alzheimer’s, and was more accurate than levels of the more usual amyloid plaques.
A study in which nearly 50 participants consumed either alcohol (.4 or .8 g/kg, around 2 or 4 glasses of wine) or a placebo drink, performed a memory task, then were shown a video of serious road traffic accidents, has found that those given the smaller amount of alcohol experienced more flashbacks during the next week than those given the larger amount of alcohol, and those given no alcohol.
Data from 625 elderly Americans, followed for an average of 8.5 years, has revealed that those with very good or excellent vision at the beginning of the study had a 63% reduced risk of dementia over the study period. Those with poorer vision who did not visit an ophthalmologist had a 9.5-fold increased risk of Alzheimer disease and a 5-fold increased risk of cognitively impaired but no dementia. For the very-old (90+), 78% who maintained normal cognition had received at least one previous eye procedure compared with 51.7% of those with Alzheimer disease.
A new study suggests that our memory for visual scenes may not depend on how much attention we’ve paid to it or what a scene contains, but when the scene is presented. In the study, participants performed an attention-demanding letter-identification task while also viewing a rapid sequence of full-field photographs of urban and natural scenes. They were then tested on their memory of the scenes.
Love this one! A series of experiments with college students has revealed that a glowing, bare light bulb can improve your changes of solving an insight problem. In one experiment, 79 students were given a spatial problem to solve. Before they started, the experimenter, remarking “It’s a little dark in here”, either turned on a lamp with an unshaded 25-watt bulb or an overhead fluorescent light. Twice as many of those exposed to the bare bulb solved the problem in the allotted three minutes (44% vs 22%).