Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB): A Factor Analytic Study of a Large Sample of Normal Elderly Volunteers

Abstract

The CANTAB battery was administered to a large group (n = 787) of elderly volunteers in the age range from 55 to 80 years. This battery, which is based on tests used to identify the neural substrates of learning and memory in non-human primates, has now been extensively used in the assessment of various forms of dementia and also validated on patients with neurosurgical lesions of the frontal and temporal lobes. The tests employed were pattern and spatial recognition, simultaneous and delayed matching to sample, learning of visuo-spatial paired associates, a matching to sample, reaction time task and a test of spatial working memory. The sample was banded into different IQ bands based on performance on 5 standard tests of intelligence. The MMSE was also administered to exclude cases of possible dementia (n = 16) in the normal sample. In general, performance declined with age and IQ, but these factors did not interact. A factor analysis (with varimax rotation) identified 4 factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, which accounted for over 60% of the variance. Factor 1 was equated with general learning and memory ability and loaded significantly with the Intelligence scores; factor 2 was related to speed of responding and loaded most heavily with Age. Comparisons were also made of performance on CANTAB of those subjects with dementing scores on the MMSE and the lowest 5th percentile of the population sample. The results are discussed in terms of the utility of the CANTAB battery for the assessment of dementia and of the implications for theories of changes in cognitive function during normal aging.

Cognitive function in healthy older European adults: the ZENITH study

“…Also, a large meta-analysis of age and sex differences by Meinz and Salthouse (1998) noted superior performance by men for spatial tests, primary and working memory tests, and tests of reasoning. However, our findings are not consistent with those of Robbins et al (1994), who examined 787 adults aged 55-80 y and found no sex differences on our measures of either PRM or MTS. The present 5-CRT results also contrast with Meinz and Salthouse's finding of greater perceptual speed in women than in men.…”

“…Thus, there was clear evidence of age-related decline in visual memory (as assessed by PRM), working memory (as assessed by SSP) and attention (as assessed by 5-CRT and MTS) in the ZENITH sample at baseline. These findings are consistent with previous results from studies that have administered tests from the CANTAB battery to healthy older adults and found age deficits (eg, Nettelbeck & Rabbitt, 1992;Robbins et al, 1994).…”

“…Construct validity for this battery has been obtained from studies of neurological patients with disorders that affect specific areas of the brain (Owen et al, 1996) and of patients with psychiatric disorders (Elliott & Sahakian, 1995) and from neuroimaging studies (Coull et al, 1996). CANTAB has been used extensively in clinical trials (Louis et al, 1999) and in research with older adults (Robbins et al, 1994).…”

Literacy, Cognitive Function, and Health: Results of the LitCog Study

“…On Day 2, patients were administered a cognitive battery to measure processing speed, working memory, inductive reasoning, long-term memory, prospective memory, and verbal ability (see Table 1). [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] Multiple tests were used for each cognitive domain, allowing a latent trait to be extracted. Northwestern University's Institutional Review Board approved the study.…”

Profiles of Cognitive Dysfunction in Chronic Amphetamine and Heroin Abusers

“…Tests shown to be sensitive to fronto-striatal or temporal lobe damage were employed from a standardized and computerised neuropsychological test battery (CANTAB) (Robbins et al 1994 together with other related variants (Iddon et al 1998;Owen et al 1995a). The CANTAB battery has been used in a wide variety of relevant patient groups, including patients with neurosurgical excisions of the prefrontal cortex or temporal lobe (Owen et al 1995b), basal ganglia disorders such as Parkinson's (e.g., Downes et al 1989;Owen et al 1992), and Huntington's disease (e.g., Lawrence et al 1996), as well as depression, schizophrenia (Elliott et al 1998), and dementia (Sahakian et al 1988).…”