Memory Tests Predict Brain Atrophy and Alzheimer's Disease

A study conducted at the University of Helsinki and the University of California and published in Brain Imaging and Behavior found using two memory tests assessing episodic memory made diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's more precise, reports ScienceDaily . Memory tests helped spot individuals with an increased risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer's within the next three years. The team investigated baseline differences between cognitively normal individuals and individuals with mild cognitive impairment on the basis of poor memory performance in story recall and word list recall. The differences focused on Alzheimer's cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers, finding that people who performed poorly in both episodic memory tests more closely resembled people with Alzheimer's than those who only did poorly in the story recall test. "During the follow-up stage, brain atrophy in the medial temporal lobes of those who only performed poorly in the story recall test did not differ from the cognitively healthy participants, whereas in those who had poor performance in both the story and word list recall tests, brain atrophy was faster," says Helsinki's Eero Vuoksimaa. Approximately half of the participants who performed poorly in both episodic memory tests within the three-year study period received an Alzheimer's diagnosis, compared to only 16 percent of those with a poor performance in only one memory test.