Face Name Associative Memory Exam and biomarker status in the ARMADA study: Advancing reliable measurement in Alzheimer's disease and cognitive aging.

The Face Name Associative Memory Exam (FNAME) was introduced into the NIH Toolbox as part of the ARMADA study and establishes normative data for diverse participants, ages 64 to 85+, and proposes cutoff scores between biomarker positive versus negative (+/-) groups. The FNAME was administered to 257 participants across the clinical spectrum with 122 having amyloid biomarkers. Linear regression explored the association between demographics and FNAME and between amyloid (+/-) groups. Receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) identified performance thresholds that best discriminated between biomarker (+/-) individuals. Lower FNAME scores occurred in males, older ages, Black/African Americans, Hispanics, and biomarker-positive participants. ROC analyses demonstrated acceptable accuracy (0.73 to 0.77) but only when combined with clinical status. The diagnostic discrimination of amyloid positivity was acceptable but not excellent, suggesting the FNAME may be a better screening indicator of clinical status rather than amyloid deposition in cognitively normal individuals. Normative data are provided.

Unsupervised mobile cognitive testing for use in preclinical Alzheimer's disease.

INTRODUCTION: Unsupervised digital cognitive testing is an appealing means to capture subtle cognitive decline in preclinical Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here, we describe development, feasibility, and validity of the Boston Remote Assessment for Neurocognitive Health (BRANCH) against in-person cognitive testing and amyloid/tau burden. METHODS: BRANCH is web-based, self-guided, and assesses memory processes vulnerable in AD. Clinically normal participants (n = 234; aged 50-89) completed BRANCH; a subset underwent in-person cognitive testing and positron emission tomography imaging. Mean accuracy across BRANCH tests (Categories, Face-Name-Occupation, Groceries, Signs) was calculated. RESULTS: BRANCH was feasible to complete on participants' own devices (primarily smartphones). Technical difficulties and invalid/unusable data were infrequent. BRANCH psychometric properties were sound, including good retest reliability. BRANCH was correlated with in-person cognitive testing (r = 0.617, P < .001). Lower BRANCH score was associated with greater amyloid (r = -0.205, P = .007) and entorhinal tau (r = -0.178, P = .026). DISCUSSION: BRANCH reliably captures meaningful cognitive information remotely, suggesting promise as a digital cognitive marker sensitive early in the AD trajectory.