Work

Detecting early memory changes in preclinical Alzheimer's disease using TabCAT Favorites Test: data from the European Prevention of Alzheimer's Dementia cohort

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Sensitive memory paradigms are needed to detect subtle memory changes associated with early Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology in individuals without established clinical symptomatology. We explored cross-sectional associations between performance on a brief computerized episodic memory test with AD cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarker status and future clinical progression in a large multinational sample of cognitively unimpaired (CU) individuals from the EPAD Longitudinal Cohort Study (LCS). METHOD: 727 CU individuals from the EPAD LCS with valid TabCAT Favorites memory performance and CSF biomarkers were included. Episodic memory was also evaluated using the RBANS Memory Index (RBANS-MI). Independent multinomial logistic regression models were performed for each memory measure to examine the associations between episodic memory performance and AT stages. Covariates included age, sex, education level, testing language, and APOE-ε4 status. The optimal Favorites cutoff maximizing Youden index was derived for the discriminative analysis. A Cox proportional hazard model was used to examine how the optimal cutoff within AT groups predicts change in Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scores. RESULT: Descriptive characteristics of the participants are shown in Table 1. Compared to A-T- individuals, poorer Favorites cross-sectional performance was associated with an increased likelihood of A+T+ status (OR=0.92, 95% CI=0.86-0.99, p = .030), but not A+T- status (OR=1.0, 95% CI=0.97-1.04, p = .813, Figure 1). There were no significant associations between AT status and RBANS-MI. Favorites showed a significant discriminative validity in predicting progression to CDR>0 only among A+T+ individuals (p = 0.014, Figure 2). CONCLUSION: Our findings showed that the tablet-based TabCAT Favorites is a sensitive measure for detecting cognitive changes in earlier stages of the AD continuum, representing a valuable alternative to traditional episodic memory tests for clinical and research applications.

Source: Alzheimer s & Dementia

DOI: 10.1002/alz70856_104291