Flower, flora, fauna: can novel metrics of verbal fluency performance help detect individuals at risk of future cognitive decline?

在英国，超过85万人被诊断患有痴呆症。虽然阻止或逆转引起痴呆的神经退行性疾病的治疗方法有限，但检测未来有认知障碍风险的个体的能力将有助于推进预防策略。这个学生的问题是，在一个简单的语言流畅性测试（比如，在60秒内说出尽可能多的动物的名字……）中产生的单词模式是否能识别出未来容易出现认知衰退的个体。我们将使用自然语言处理技术来描述语义、语言和执行策略的细微差异。该项目将完成对健康成年人的研究，根据他们是否携带阿尔茨海默病的遗传风险因素进行区分，以及对有认知障碍的成年人进行NHS记忆评估服务。该项目将开发一个创新的，理论驱动的结果集合，用于使用易于自动化的计算技术来表征语言流畅性任务的表现。随后，您将测试这些指标是否对携带APOE 4基因风险变异对痴呆的影响敏感，以及这种敏感性是否随着年龄的增长而变化。在NHS记忆评估服务中，将有一项研究来探索你所建立的语言流畅性测量是否有助于在现实世界的医疗环境中进行诊断和1年预后。

Project background Over 850,000 people are living with a dementia diagnosis in the UK. Whilst treatments to halt or reverse dementia-causing neurodegenerative disease are limited, the ability to detect individuals at risk of future cognitive impairment will help advance preventative strategies.This studentship asks if the patterns of words produced on a simple verbal fluency task (i.e., name as many animals as you can in 60-seconds...) can identify individuals vulnerable to future cognitive decline. We will use natural language processing techniques to characterise subtle differences in the semantic, language and executive strategies to produce words. The project will complete research with healthy adults differentiated by whether they carry a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's Disease or not, and with adults referred to NHS memory assessment services with cognitive complaints. Project aims and objectivesThe project will develop an innovative, theoretically driven collection of outcomes for characterising verbal fluency task performance using easy-to-automate, computational techniques. You will subsequently test if these measures are sensitive to the effects of carrying an APOE 4 genetic risk variant for dementia, and if this sensitivity changes with age. There will be research within an NHS memory assessment service to explore if the verbal fluency measures you have established can help aid diagnosis and 1-year prognosis in a real-world healthcare setting.