A brief digital test flagged the amyloid-positive adults at highest decline risk
Among cognitively normal people with amyloid, a short self-administered digital test singled out an 18% subgroup with nearly triple the risk of cognitive decline.
Amyloid positivity alone does not reliably predict who will decline soon in preclinical Alzheimer's disease. Researchers analyzed a brief self-administered digital cognitive battery in 1146 amyloid-positive and 538 amyloid-negative cognitively unimpaired older adults from the AHEAD and LEARN studies.
Unsupervised clustering sorted participants into four cognitive phenotypes. One, containing 18% of amyloid-positive participants, had the steepest cognitive decline, the most progression on the Clinical Dementia Rating, more medial temporal tau at baseline, and the fastest neocortical tau accumulation over 4.6 years. Its hazard ratio for decline was about 2.9. Pairing this phenotype with elevated plasma p-tau217 identified a subgroup with a hazard ratio of about 4.5.
These are prognostic associations within trial-screening cohorts, so they do not show that the phenotype causes decline, and the findings may not generalize beyond similar populations.
Summary prepared with AI assistance from the published abstract and reviewed by a physician. Not medical advice. Learn more
