Using a Digital Neuro Signature to measure longitudinal individual-level change in Alzheimer's disease: the Altoida large cohort study
Irene B Meier, Max Buegler, Robbert Harms, Azizi Seixas, Arzu Çöltekin, Ioannis Tarnanas, Irene B Meier, Max Buegler, Robbert Harms, Azizi Seixas, Arzu Çöltekin, Ioannis Tarnanas
Abstract
Conventional neuropsychological assessments for Alzheimer's disease are burdensome and inaccurate at detecting mild cognitive impairment and predicting Alzheimer's disease risk. Altoida's Digital Neuro Signature (DNS), a longitudinal cognitive test consisting of two active digital biomarker metrics, alleviates these limitations. By comparison to conventional neuropsychological assessments, DNS results in faster evaluations (10 min vs 45-120 min), and generates higher test-retest in intraindividual assessment, as well as higher accuracy at detecting abnormal cognition. This study comparatively evaluates the performance of Altoida's DNS and conventional neuropsychological assessments in intraindividual assessments of cognition and function by means of two semi-naturalistic observational experiments with 525 participants in laboratory and clinical settings. The results show that DNS is consistently more sensitive than conventional neuropsychological assessments at capturing longitudinal individual-level change, both with respect to intraindividual variability and dispersion (intraindividual variability across multiple tests), across three participant groups: healthy controls, mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer's disease. Dispersion differences between DNS and conventional neuropsychological assessments were more pronounced with more advanced disease stages, and DNS-intraindividual variability was able to predict conversion from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease. These findings are instrumental for patient monitoring and management, remote clinical trial assessment, and timely interventions, and will hopefully contribute to a better understanding of Alzheimer's disease.
Conflict of interest statement
A.S. and A.Ç. declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article. The remaining authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships, which may be considered potential competing interests: M.B. and I.T. are employees and shareholders of Altodia, Inc. M.B., I.B.M., R.H., and I.T. report personal fees from Altoida, Inc., outside the submitted work. Finally, I.T., R.H., and M.B. have issued and pending patents with respect to Altoida DNS.
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References
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