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Spatial Navigation Ability As A Predictor Of Increased Clinical Impairment, Taylor Hendershott

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Spatial navigation deficits are observed in Alzheimer disease (AD) cross-sectionally, but prediction of longitudinal clinical decline has been less examined. Cognitive mapping (CM) was assessed in 95 participants and route Learning (RL) was assessed in 65 participants at baseline. Clinical progression over an average of 4.16 years was assessed using the Clinical Dementia Rating scale. Relative predictive ability of these tasks was compared to episodic memory, hippocampal volume and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers (ptau₁₈₁/Aβ₄₂ ratio). CM and RL were significant predictors of clinical progression (ps181/Aβ₄₂ in prediction (psTaken together the results suggest that baseline spatial navigation …