Motor functioning in mild cognitive impairment

 
   Lead Investigator:    Daniel Seichepine
   Institution      :    Boston U
   E-Mail           :    daniel13@bu.edu
   Proposal ID      :    176



   Proposal Description:
   Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is associated with an increased risk for developing Alzheimer???s disease (AD).  However, many MCI patients (~44) show no evidence of cognitive impairment 10 years after receiving a diagnosis, highlighting the need for improved methods of detecting incipient dementia. Identification of early symptoms may be instrumental in developing therapeutic options, which are presently limited to symptomatic treatment.  Recently it has been suggested that certain motor symptoms (i.e., non-tremor symptoms) in Parkinson???s disease (PD) increase the risk for developing dementia.           Non-demented PD patients with non-tremor motor symptoms (i.e., rigidity, bradykinesia, and gait problems) are about 4 times more likely to develop dementia than PD patients with tremor symptoms (i.e., resting tremor).  This non-tremor subtype also has cerebrospinal tau protein levels similar to that of patients with AD, who also experience a range of motor symptoms.  The purpose of the proposed study is to use a validated measure of motor functioning (i.e., Unified Parkinson???s Disease Rating Scale UPDRS) to relate motor functioning to diagnostic conversion, cognitive trajectory, and functional trajectory in MCI.  In aim one, MCI patients will be categorized according to stability of  cognitive status over the follow-up period (i.e., MCI participants who progress to dementia, MCI participants who remain stable, and MCI participants whose revert to normal cognition) and baseline UPDRS motor scores will be used to predict diagnostic changes.  For the second aim, longitudinal UPDRS motor scores in adults free of dementia (e.g., normal cognition, MCI) will be used to predict cognitive and functional trajectory over the follow-up period.