@article{10902/36688,
year = {2025},
url = {https://hdl.handle.net/10902/36688},
abstract = {Introduction: We aimed to determine whether cognitively unimpaired (CU) amyloid- beta-positive (A+) individuals display decreased practice effects on serial neuropsychological testing.
Methods: We included 209 CU participants from three research centers, 157 A- controls and 52 A+ individuals. Participants underwent neuropsychological assessment at baseline and annually during a 2-year follow-up. We used linear mixed-effects models to analyze cognitive change over time between the two groups, including time from baseline, amyloid status, their interaction, age, sex, and years of education as fixed effects and the intercept and time as random effects.
Results: The A+ group showed reduced practice effects in verbal learning (= -1.14, SE = 0.40, p = 0.0046) and memory function ( = -0.56, SE = 0.19, p = 0.0035), as well as in language tasks ( = -0.59, SE = 0.19, p = 0.0027).
Discussion: Individuals with normal cognition who are in the Alzheimer's continuum show decreased practice effects over annual neuropsychological testing. Our findings could have implications for the design and interpretation of primary prevention trials.
Highlights: This was a multicenter study on practice effects in asymptomatic A+ individuals. We used LME models to analyze cognitive trajectories across multiple domains. Practice-effects reductions might be an indicator of subtle cognitive decline. Implications on clinical and research settings within the AD field are discussed.},
organization = {This work has been supported by the project PI19/00745 to LR, funded by Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) and co-funded by the European Union. NF was recipient of Juan Rodés contract JR22/00014
(ISCIII). II-G is a senior Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) and receives funding from the GBHI, the Alzheimer’s Association, and the Alzheimer’s Society (GBHI ALZ UK-21-720973 and AACSF-21-850193). II-G was also supported by the Juan Rodés Contract (JR20/0018) and Instituto de Salud Carlos III (PI21/00791, PI24/00598). This work was supported by the Alzheimer’s Association Clinician Scientist Fellowship Program AACSF-21-850193 awarded to II-G. The GAP study was supported by Fundación CITA-Alzhéimer Fundazioa, the Ministry of Health of Spain (grants PI12/02262 and PI1500919), and the Basque Country Government (grants S-PR12CH001 and S-PR13ZH001).},
publisher = {Wiley},
publisher = {Alzheimer's & Dementia: the Journal of the Alzheimer's Association, 2025, 21(3), e70016},
title = {Decreased practice effects in cognitively unimpaired amyloid betapositive individuals: a multicenter, longitudinal, cohort study},
author = {Tort Merino, Adrià and Pérez Millan, Agnès and Falgàs, Neus and Borrego Écija, Sergi and Esteller, Diana and Bosch, Bea and Castellví, Magdalena and Juncà Parella, Jordi and del Val Guardiola, Andrea and Fernández Villullas, Guadalupe and Antonell, Anna and Sanchez Saudinós, María Belén and Rubio Guerra, Sara and Zhu, Nuole and García Martínez, María and Pozueta Cantudo, Ana and Estanga, Ainara and Ecay Torres, Mirian and Rodríguez Rodríguez, Eloy Manuel and López de Luis, Carolina},
}