Processing of Music in Alzheimer Patients (MUKU-DEM)

Correlation of Musicality and Cognitive Skills in Persons With Alzheimer´s Disease

Correlation of musicality, brain atrophy in brain areas relevant for music processing and the stage of Alzheimer´s disease.

Study Overview

• Status: Unknown
• Conditions: Dementia; Alzheimer Disease; Amusia

Detailed Description

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia accounting for 60-70% of all dementias. In most cases the cause for AD is unknown. The progression of AD is characterized by an advancing decline in cognitive skills and symptoms like impaired learning, memory deficits, language impairment and behavioral disturbances in later stages. The symptoms of AD are caused by cerebral atrophy which is the consequence of multiple pathological processes, including the formation of neurofibrillary tangles at neurites and amyloid plaques in the walls of cerebral blood vessels. AD is a major public health issue and its significance increases as the population grows older.

Music is thought to have preceded the development of spoken language as a form of communication and it has been used for therapeutic purposes in many ways throughout history. In patients with AD, musical memory has been noticed to be well-preserved and constituting a relatively independent part of memory. Music-based neurological rehabilitation provides a mode of treatment, which is free of side effects and can be personalized for patients with dementia.

Aims of this study are to examine how AD affects the structure of various brain areas associated with music processing and to statistically correlate musical cognition with memory performance in patients with AD. Focus is on brain areas associated with musical pleasure like the striatum, superior temporal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus and areas associated with long-term musical memory like the anterior cingulate gyrus and presupplementary motor area. Hippocampal atrophy serves as a reference of the stage of AD. Our working hypothesis is that musicality correlates with preserved cognitive skills and memory.

Voluntary participants who have been diagnosed with AD are recruited from Turku University Central Hospital. Their musicality is assessed with a short version of Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia which contains listening tasks that test the patients' memory, rhythm recognition and pitch discrimination. In addition, patients are asked to fill an inquiry that maps their use of music and its significance in their daily lives. Voxel-Based Morphometry is applied on MRI images to evaluate atrophy in the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex, which correlate with clinical stages of AD, as well as on the brain areas relevant for processing of music.

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Anticipated): 50

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Seppo Soinila, MD PhD; Phone Number: +358503463396; Email: seppo.soinila@tyks.fi
• Study Contact Backup: Name: Pavel Zaitsev, B.Sc.; Email: pavel.p.zaitsev@utu.fi

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: N/A
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

• Sampling Method: Probability Sample

Study Population

Patients of Southwest Finland Hospital District

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

Diagnosed Alzheimer´s disease

Exclusion Criteria:

Other neurological comorbidity, substance abuse

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Observational Models: Cohort
• Time Perspectives: Retrospective

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia	Number of correct answers in three task collections (total 79 tasks)	60 minutes
Brain atrophy in MRI scans	Loss of volume in brain regions relevant for music processing and in the hippocampi estimated by voxel-based morphometry	120 minutes
CERAD (Consortium for Establishing Registry of Alzheimer´s Disease)	Level of cognitive impairment	30 minutes

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Use of music in patient´s daily life	Validated self-report questionnaire MusEQ in Finnish, Likert scale 1-5 (Vanstone AD et al, Aging Ment Health 2016)	30 minutes

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Turku University Hospital
• Collaborators: University of Turku
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Seppo Soinila, MD PhD, Turku University Hospital

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Anticipated): October 1, 2019
• Primary Completion (Anticipated): May 1, 2020
• Study Completion (Anticipated): May 1, 2021

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: October 8, 2019
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 16, 2019
• First Posted (Actual): October 18, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): October 25, 2019
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 23, 2019
• Last Verified: October 1, 2019

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Brain Diseases; Central Nervous System Diseases; Nervous System Diseases; Neurocognitive Disorders; Neurodegenerative Diseases; Dementia; Tauopathies; Alzheimer Disease
• Other Study ID Numbers: T112/2019

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: No

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No