Dysexecutive difficulty and subtle everyday functional disabilities: the digital Trail Making Test.

Background

Digital neuropsychological tests reliably capture real-time, process-based behavior that traditional paper/pencil tests cannot detect, enabling earlier detection of neurodegenerative illness. We assessed relations between informant-based subtle and mild functional decline and process-based features extracted from the digital Trail Making Test-Part B (dTMT-B).

Methods

A total of 321 community-dwelling participants (56.0% female) were assessed with the Functional Activities Questionnaire (FAQ) and the dTMT-B. Three FAQ groups were constructed: FAQ = 0 (unimpaired); FAQ = 1-4 (subtle impairment); FAQ = 5-8 (mild impairment).

Results

Compared to the FAQ-unimpaired group, other groups required longer pauses inside target circles (

Conclusion

Digital assessment technology elegantly quantifies occult, nuanced behavior not previously appreciated, operationally defines critical underlying neurocognitive constructs related to functional abilities, and yields selected process-based scores that outperform traditional paper/pencil test scores for participant classification. When brought to scale, the dTMT-B test could be a sensitive tool to detect subtle-to-mild functional deficits in emergent neurodegenerative illnesses.

Informations de copyright

Copyright © 2024 Libon, Swenson, Tobyne, Jannati, Schulman, Price, Lamar and Pascual-Leone.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

DL and RS consult to Linus Health, Inc. and receive royalties from Oxford University Press. DL receives royalties from Linus Health, Inc. DS, ST, AJ, and AP-L were employees of Linus Health, Inc. and receive shares or share options from Linus Health. AP-L serves as a paid member of the scientific advisory boards for Neuroelectrics, Magstim Inc., TetraNeuron, Skin2Neuron, MedRhythms, and Hearts Radiant. He is co-founder of TI Solutions and co-founder and chief medical officer of Linus Health and receives shares or share options from Linus Health. He is listed as an inventor on several issued and pending patents on the real-time integration of transcranial magnetic stimulation with electroencephalography and magnetic resonance imaging, and applications of noninvasive brain stimulation in various neurological disorders, as well as digital biomarkers of cognition and digital assessments for early diagnosis of dementia. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.