Abstract
The Face-Name Associative Memory Exam (FNAME) is a paired associative memory test created to detect memory deficits in individuals with preclinical Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Worse performance on FNAME in cognitively healthy individuals were found related to higher amyloid beta (Aβ) burden measured with Positron-Emission-Tomography using 11C-PiB (PiB-PET). We previously reported normative data of a Spanish version of FNAME (S-FNAME) in cognitively healthy Spanish-speaking subjects. The aim of the present study was to determine whether performance on S-FNAME was associated with Aβ burden in subjective cognitive decline (SCD) individuals. 200 SCD subjects received neurological and neuropsychological assessments, including the S-FNAME and the Word List task from the Wechsler-Memory-Scale-III (WMS-III). Moreover, they received an MRI and (18)F-Florbetaben Positron-Emission-Tomography (FBB-PET) to measure Aβ burden. Three cognitive factor composites were derived for the episodic memory measures (face-name [SFN-N], face-occupation [SFN-O] and WMS-III) to determine whether episodic memory performance was related to Aβ deposition. Higher global Aβ deposition was significantly related to worse performance on SFN-N but not with SFN-O or WMS-III Composite. Moreover, worse SFN-N performance was significantly related to higher Aβ deposition in bilateral Posterior Cingulate Cortex. The S-FNAME may be a promising neuropsychological tool for detecting SCD individuals with preclinical AD.
Highlights
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a major health problem with an estimated 50 million people worldwide living with dementia[1,2] with 33% of clinically normal older individuals having the underlying pathology of AD
We examined, using a Random Decision Forest analysis, whether the S-FNAME Name (SFN-N) was sensitive to region-specific amyloid load and found that the only statistically significant association was in the bilateral posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), where amyloid load negatively correlated with performance on this composite (β = −0.20, p = 0.01)
Amyloid-positive subjects performed worse on SFN-N than those who were amyloid-negative. This is consistent with results reported by Rentz and coworkers (2011) in an English speaking population with the original Face-Name Associative Memory Exam (FNAME) test and using Pittsburgh compound B-positron emission tomography (PiB-PET)[11]
Summary
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a major health problem with an estimated 50 million people worldwide living with dementia[1,2] with 33% of clinically normal older individuals having the underlying pathology of AD. Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) has been proposed as a risk factor for progression to AD dementia[3,4]. It refers to the perception of memory or other cognitive problems without impairment on standardized cognitive tests. Other cross-sectional studies have demonstrated an association between SCD and AD biomarkers in clinically normal older individuals[9,10,11,12]. Preclinical AD cannot be diagnosed with current standard neuropsychological tools and its diagnosis relies on the positivity of the different biomarkers of AD13 For this reason, there is an increasing interest in developing neuropsychological tools capable of identifying the subtle cognitive deficits present in the preclinical stage of AD14. The main aim of the present study was to determine whether performance on S-FNAME in 200 SCD subjects was associated with Aβ burden measured with (18) F-Florbetaben Positron Emission Tomography (FBB-PET)
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