Ricerc@Sapienza

The challenging aim of present project is to develop a novel approach to cognitive evaluation, for identifying minor (miND) and major (MaND) neurocognitive disorders in their very early stage, well before individuals' performance becomes defective or individuals become aware that their performance has worsened. Indeed, battery of tests available to date pay attention to differentiate normal from pathological performances, but can not detect anomalous changes in normal abilities. In present study we will use tests developed for accurately detecting individual differences in performances due to aging, with the aim to provide an instrument sensitive to the subtle changes in normal performance that signal the onset of a neurodegenerative pathology. Indeed, onset of cognitive deficits in MaND (i.e., Alzheimer, FTD,etc.) is subtle and progressive (with underlying brain pathology starting even 15yrs before first clinical signs.
Thus, individuals who will develop a MaND will show a progressive decline of cognitive skills, characterized by a worsening of performances greater than that expected in normal aging,that can precede by years the onset of deficit. Evaluating the rate of decline in cognitive skills known to be involved in the early stages of MaND will allow to detect the presence of brain pathologies in their pre-clinical stages, well before the onset of miND/MaND. Due to individual differences in performances by healthy individuals, detecting abnormal rates of decline may be difficult. For this reason our battery consists in a "monitoring system of individual performances (MoSIP)", allowing to detect anomalous aging by comparing consecutive sessions of evaluation in the same individual at given time intervals (6 months). Comparing an individual performances in consecutive sessions will let to compute his/her slope of cognitive aging that will be compared with the expected one. A slope deeper than expected will signal the presence of a brain pathology.