EEG test could enable early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease – Physics World - physicsworld.com

A new memory assessment technique could pave the way for earlier diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, the underlying cause of around 60% of dementia cases.

The second mirrors the brain’s response to previously seen images and reflects the patient’s recognition memory.

In a study reported in Brain, Stothart and collaborators tested Fastball EEG in 20 patients with Alzheimer’s disease, 20 healthy older adults and 20 healthy younger adults.

In the repetition condition, the eight images were not seen in advance but were repeated during the Fastball task.

For both the recognition and repetition conditions, Fastball EEG detected significantly impaired recognition memory in Alzheimer’s disease patients compared with healthy older control subjects.

The Fastball test could also discriminate Alzheimer’s disease patients from healthy older adult controls, with an accuracy of 86%.

Here, the researchers observed little difference between Alzheimer’s disease patients and controls, suggesting that Fastball was more sensitive to memory performance than this behavioural recognition test.

The researchers conclude that this new method for measuring visual recognition memory is sensitive to changes in recognition memory processes in Alzheimer’s disease that would be missed by behavioural testing alone.