An fNIRS Investigation of the Prefrontal Cortical Processing Demands Associated with a Communication Based Assessment for Mild Cognitive Impairment

Conference Year

January 2020

Abstract

When working with people who have communication impairments, there are not enough cognitive assessment tools to discern between baseline neural function, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). While there are some available measures, we would like to expand the repertoire and ensure that they hold up against test/re-test principles, including accurate tracking over time because these diseases are progressive. This study proposes to expand these tools of studying neuronal activity, looking at tasks linguistically and with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to explore what brain regions are used during human discourse.

Primary Faculty Mentor Name

Dr. Michael Cannizzaro

Secondary Mentor Name

Dr. John Green

Status

Undergraduate

Student College

College of Arts and Sciences

Program/Major

Neuroscience

Primary Research Category

Health Sciences

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An fNIRS Investigation of the Prefrontal Cortical Processing Demands Associated with a Communication Based Assessment for Mild Cognitive Impairment

When working with people who have communication impairments, there are not enough cognitive assessment tools to discern between baseline neural function, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). While there are some available measures, we would like to expand the repertoire and ensure that they hold up against test/re-test principles, including accurate tracking over time because these diseases are progressive. This study proposes to expand these tools of studying neuronal activity, looking at tasks linguistically and with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to explore what brain regions are used during human discourse.