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Contralateral Delay Activity is not sensitive to cognitive decline in older adults at risk of Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Farina, F. R.; Pragulbickaite, G.; Bennett, M.; Judd, C.; Walsh, K.; Mitchell, S.; O'Connell, R. G.; Whelan, R.

2019-09-06 neuroscience
10.1101/753392 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Contralateral delay activity (CDA) has been proposed as a pre-clinical marker for Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). However, existing evidence is limited to one study with a small sample size (n=12 per group). Our aim was to compare CDA amplitudes in a larger sample of low- and high-risk older adult groups (n=35 per group). As expected, behavioural performance decreased as the number of memory items increased, and the low-risk group out-performed the high-risk group. However, we found no differences in CDA amplitudes across groups, indicating that WM capacity increased irrespective of risk-level. These findings suggest that the CDA is not a sensitive marker of MCI risk. More broadly, our results highlight the difficulty in identifying at-risk individuals, particularly as MCI is a heterogeneous, unstable condition. Future research should prioritise longitudinal approaches in order to track the progression of the CDA and its association with cognitive decline in later life.

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