Cats and Apples: Semantic Fluency Performance for Living Things Identifies Patients with Very Early Alzheimer’s Disease

Krumm, Sabine; Berres, Manfred; Kivisaari, Sasa L.; Monsch, Andreas U.; Reinhardt, Julia; Blatow, Maria; Kressig, Reto W.; Taylor, Kirsten I.

doi:10.1093/arclin/acaa109

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…The item categories were animals, fruits, tools, and vehicles. In this study, we focus on the animal category due to difficulties that patients with Alzheimer's disease exhibit when distinguishing living things in particular (Taylor et al, 2007 ; Krumm et al, 2021 ). As proposed by Troyer et al ( 1997 ), we utilized all words produced in the task in the further analyses and did not differentiate between correct and non-correct words (i.e., repetitions or perseverations).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the neurocognitive framework, research on the semantic fluency task has mostly focused on comparing general higher level categories, such as living vs. non-living (Kivisaari et al, 2012 ; Tyler et al, 2013 ; Krumm et al, 2021 ) and animals, fruits, tools, and vehicles (Clarke and Tyler, 2014 ; Kivisaari et al, 2019 ). Also finer-grained semantic performance within single semantic categories has been examined, with the categories divided further into sub-categories based on the researcher's own evaluation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Moving in Semantic Space in Prodromal and Very Early Alzheimer's Disease: An Item-Level Characterization of the Semantic Fluency Task

et al. 2022

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The semantic fluency task is a widely used clinical tool in the diagnostic process of Alzheimer's disease. The task requires efficient mapping of the semantic space to produce as many items as possible within a semantic category. We examined whether healthy volunteers (n = 42) and patients with early Alzheimer's disease (24 diagnosed with amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment and 18 with early Alzheimer's dementia) take advantage of and travel in the semantic space differently. With focus on the animal fluency task, we sought to emulate the detailed structure of the multidimensional semantic space by utilizing word2vec-method from the natural language processing domain. To render the resulting multidimensional semantic space visually comprehensible, we applied a dimensionality reduction algorithm (t-SNE), which enabled a straightforward division of the semantic space into sub-categories. Moving in semantic space was quantified with the number of items created, sub-categories visited, and switches and returns to these sub-categories. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to predict the diagnostic group with these independent variables. We found that returning to a sub-category provided additional information, besides the number of words produced in the task, to differentiate patients with Alzheimer's dementia from both amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment patients and healthy controls. The results suggest that the frequency of returning to a sub-category may serve as an additional aid for clinicians in diagnosing early Alzheimer's disease. Moreover, our results imply that the combination of word2vec and subsequent t-SNE-visualization may offer a valuable tool for examining the semantic space and its sub-categories.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moving in Semantic Space in Prodromal and Very Early Alzheimer's Disease: An Item-Level Characterization of the Semantic Fluency Task

et al. 2022

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“…However, in some studies, a steep decline in semantic memory performance was observed approximately 5 years prior to clinical AD diagnosis (15,17). Furthermore, persons with preclinical AD often experience difficulty with verbal abilities, including category fluency for living things (e.g., animals), and the naming of famous people (18,19). These findings suggest that a more detailed exploration of between-person differences in semantic memory performance could be fruitful when attempting to design a cognitive screening instrument sensitive enough to detect preclinical AD.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stimulus material selection for the Dutch famous faces test for older adults

et al. 2023

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Worldwide, approximately 22% of all individuals aged 50 years and older are currently estimated to fall somewhere on the Alzheimer’s disease (AD) continuum, which can be roughly divided into preclinical AD, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and AD dementia. While episodic memory loss (among other aspects) is typically required for a diagnosis of AD dementia, MCI is said to have occurred when cognitive impairment (including memory loss) is worse than expected for the person’s age but not enough to be classified as dementia. On the other hand, preclinical AD can currently only be detected using biomarkers; clinical symptoms are not apparent using traditional neuropsychological tests. The main aim of the current paper was to explore the possibility of a test which could distinguish preclinical AD from normal aging. Recent scientific evidence suggests that the Famous Faces Test (FFT) could differentiate preclinical AD from normal aging up to 5 years before a clinical AD diagnosis. Problematic with existing FFTs is the selection of stimulus material. Faces famous in a specific country and a specific decade might not be equally famous for individuals in another country or indeed for people of different ages. The current article describes how famous faces were systematically selected and chosen for the Dutch older (60+) population using five steps. The goal was to design and develop short versions of the FFT for Dutch older adults of equivalent mean difficulty. In future work, these nine parallel versions will be necessary for (a) cross-sectional comparison as well as subsequent longitudinal assessment of cognitively normal and clinical groups and (b) creating personalized norms for the normal aged controls that could be used to compare performance within individuals with clinical diagnoses. The field needs a simple, cognitive test which can distinguish the earliest stages of the dementia continuum from normal aging.

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Current Understanding of Verbal Fluency in Alzheimer’s Disease: Evidence to Date

Wright¹,

Marco²,

Venneri³

2023

PRBM

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Since their development, verbal fluency tests (VFTs) have been used extensively throughout research and in clinical settings to assess a variety of cognitive functions in diverse populations. In Alzheimer’s disease (AD), these tasks have proven particularly valuable in identifying the earliest forms of cognitive decline in semantic processing and have been shown to relate specifically to brain regions associated with the initial stages of pathological change. In recent years, researchers have developed more nuanced techniques to evaluate verbal fluency performance, extracting a wide range of cognitive metrics from these simple neuropsychological tests. Such novel techniques allow for a more detailed exploration of the cognitive processes underlying successful task performance beyond the raw test score. The versatility of VFTs and the richness of data they may provide, in light of their low cost and speed of administration, therefore, highlight their potential value both in future research as outcome measures for clinical trials and in a clinical setting as a screening measure for early detection of neurodegenerative diseases.

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Cats and Apples: Semantic Fluency Performance for Living Things Identifies Patients with Very Early Alzheimer’s Disease

Cited by 5 publications

References 29 publications

Moving in Semantic Space in Prodromal and Very Early Alzheimer's Disease: An Item-Level Characterization of the Semantic Fluency Task

Moving in Semantic Space in Prodromal and Very Early Alzheimer's Disease: An Item-Level Characterization of the Semantic Fluency Task

Stimulus material selection for the Dutch famous faces test for older adults

Current Understanding of Verbal Fluency in Alzheimer’s Disease: Evidence to Date

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