Name of Fellow


Dr Mario Parra

Institution


Funder


Alzheimer's Society

Contact information of fellow


Country


United Kingdom

Title of project/programme


Short-term memory binding: a sensitive cognitive marker for Alzheimer's disease

Source of funding information


Alzheimer's Society

Total sum awarded (Euro)


€ 253,692

Start date of award


04/09/12

Total duration of award in years


3.0

The project/programme is most relevant to:


Alzheimer's disease & other dementias

Keywords


Research Abstract


Early accurate diagnosis of AD is essential in treatment selection, care planning and correct placement in therapeutic trials. Cognitive assessment is vital in the diagnosis of AD. Current assessment tools investigate functions which are also sensitive to the effects of healthy ageing and to non-AD dementias. Short-term memory (STM) binding has proved sensitive to AD but insensitive to healthy ageing, depression or non-AD dementias. STM binding declines in the preclinical stages of familial AD. The present project investigates (a) whether STM binding declines in MCI, (b) the anatomical underpinnings of STM binding and (c) the functional implications of STM binding deficits. Eighty patients with MCI and 40 controls will be assessed longitudinally with a STM binding task and neuropsychological tasks. To investigate the neural correlates of STM binding, 20 MCI patients and 20 controls will be asked to perform the binding task within the fMRI scanner. To investigate the functional implications of binding deficits, performance of 60 patients with AD and 60 controls on a multimodal binding task (e.g., sounds-objects-locations) will be compared. The outcomes from this project will support the usefulness of STM binding as a marker for AD. Effective methodologies will be introduced in clinical practice

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