In this episode Dr. Scott Sperling and student leader, Dr. Kritika Nayar, discuss the paper Language Switching and Speaking a Non-Dominant Language Challenge Executive Control: Preliminary Data for Novel Behavioral Markers of Alzheimer's Risk in Spanish-English Bilinguals, with the paper's authors, Ms. Dalia Lopez Garcia and Dr. Tamar Gollan. In this study, using psycholinguistic analyses, authors explored language switching and speaking a nondominant language as markers of Alzheimer's risk in Spanish-English bilinguals. All 19 participants, who were cognitively healthy, completed neuropsychological testing, a structured interview (in both Spanish and English), and language switching tasks. Following this, 8 individuals were diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease (AD). In analyzing differences in their performance in this earlier testing, results showed that certain utterances in their nondominant language (e.g., revisions, repetitions, filled pauses) as well errors in a language switching test were particularly indicative of AD risk. Overall, these measures may reflect early decline in executive control abilities and may be valuable indicators of AD risk in this bilingual population.

In this episode, Dr. Scott Sperling and early career leader, Dr. Zachary Resch, will be discussing the paper, Signs and Symptoms Method in Neuropsychology: A Standardized Observational Examination of Cognitive Functions Can Be Effective in Detecting Mild Cognitive Impairment, with two of the study authors, Dr. Carlo Abbate & Dr. Alessia Gallucci. In their study, the authors examined the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of what they term the "NeuroPsychological Examination" or "NPE", which is a systematic method of collecting and quantifying cognitive and behavioral symptoms during a clinical interview. The NPE was implemented for 475 participants (208 with MCI, 188 with dementia, and 79 with subjective cognitive decline). Results demonstrated that the number of neuropsychological signs from the NPE could discriminate between all three groups with good sensitivity and specificity, which highlights its utility for clinical neuropsychologists.  

In our inaugural podcast, Dr. Scott Sperling and Mr. Humza Khan discuss a very exciting paper, entitled, Development and Application of the International Classification of Cognitive Disorders in Epilepsy (IC-CoDE): Initial Results From a Multi-Center Study of Adults With Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, with two of the paper’s authors, Dr. Carrie McDonald and Dr. Anny Reyes. The IC-CoDE is the first iteration of a classification system for harmonizing cognitive diagnostics in epilepsy research that can be applied across neuropsychological tests and temporal lobe epilepsy cohorts. This proof-of-principle study in temporal lobe epilepsy offers a promising path for enhancing research collaborations globally and accelerating scientific discoveries.