Combined tests better predicted mild cognitive impairment
Among 102 initially unimpaired older adults with a family history of Alzheimer’s, 31 developed mild cognitive impairment during an observational study averaging 5.9 years.
Our read
Biomarkers- Studied:
- Cohort study of 102 people (5.9 years)
- In the record:
- One of 7 papers on entorhinal tau on record: 5 with results in people.
Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
Among 102 older adults with normal thinking abilities and a family history of Alzheimer’s disease, 31 developed mild cognitive impairment—problems with memory or other thinking skills—in an observational cohort study. Follow-up averaged 5.9 years. Enrollment required age 60 or older, or 55–59 if within 15 years of an affected relative’s age at disease onset.
Models combining brain-wave recordings, brain scans and blood markers predicted progression better than age, sex, education and genetic risk alone. Higher activity in the alpha brain-wave rhythm was linked to greater near-term risk, while higher gamma activity was linked to lower risk. Both links weakened over time. Higher brain amyloid, a protein that forms plaques, was linked to increasing risk over follow-up. Blood markers and tau protein measured in one brain region predicted higher risk without significant time-related changes.
Why it matters
Alzheimer’s disease can develop silently for years, making earlier identification of people at risk important for prevention trials and early intervention.
Caveats
The combined model was built and assessed in the same 102-person cohort, with brain-wave measures selected because they were associated with progression. Its performance outside older adults with a family history of Alzheimer’s disease remains uncertain.
From the paper
- Participants
Our primary analysis included 102 participants from the Pre-Symptomatic Evaluation of Experimental or Novel Treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease (PREVENT-AD) cohort, a longitudinal study of cognitively unimpaired older adults with a family history of AD.
Results, PREVENT-AD study participants and multimodal biomarkers
- Follow-up
Over a mean follow-up of 5.88 years (SD = 1.64; range = 0.19 to 7.45), 31 participants progressed to MCI and 71 remained stable on the basis of a multidisciplinary clinical consensus review (see the “Neuropsychological assessment and MCI diagnosis” section in Materials and Methods).
Results, PREVENT-AD study participants and multimodal biomarkers
Quoted word for word from the full text on PubMed Central.
The paper
Prediction of mild cognitive impairment progression using time-sensitive multimodal biomarkers
Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital
Science Advances, Aug 12, 2026, Open access
Presented at AAIC 2025 as an abstract
Presented at AAIC 2025 as an abstract
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