Work

Item‐level verbal fluency psycholinguistic metrics predict preclinical Alzheimer's disease

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: INTRODUCTION: Preclinical Alzheimer's disease (pAD) is characterized by subtle disruptions in semantic network functioning. Psycholinguistic metrics from item-level responses during verbal fluency tasks could reflect these changes in the asymptomatic stage. METHODS: We analyzed psycholinguistic metrics for Animal and F Fluency (age of acquisition [AoA], semantic neighborhood density [SND], and lexical frequency [LF]), testing whether these metrics differentiated 50 participants with positron emission tomography (PET)-confirmed pAD (Aβ+) from 99 controls (Aβ-) and predicted cognitive decline. RESULTS: s = 0.33-0.44), despite comparable total scores. All three metrics predicted amyloid positivity in models controlling for age and total score. No significant findings were observed for F Fluency, and no metrics predicted cognitive decline. DISCUSSION: Psycholinguistic metrics for Animal, but not F Fluency responses may reflect changes in semantic network functioning in pAD not captured by the total score.

Source: Alzheimer s & Dementia Diagnosis Assessment & Disease Monitoring

DOI: 10.1002/dad2.70533