Movements of Daily Activity May Predict Alzheimer's Disease

Subconscious changes in movement may predict Alzheimer's disease, years before cognitive symptoms appear.

Complex fluctuations occur in the movement of people as they perform their daily activities without conscious thought. These fluctuations called fractal motor activity regulation (FMAR), and these patterns can be recorded using a wristwatch-like device known as an actigraph, as per a study at Brigham and Women's Hospital, the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and Washington University at St. Louis, published in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring.

The study team analyzed FMAR patterns in 178 cognitively healthy adults from the Washington University Knight Alzheimer's disease Research Center, who were also tested for established biomarkers of preclinical Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology. 7 to 14 days of home actigraphy were done in all the participants.

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‘Subconscious changes in movement also called fractal motor activity regulation (FMAR), may predict the onset of Alzheimer's disease, years before cognitive symptoms appear. This may serve as an opportunity for early treatments and measures for modification of existing risk factors.’

Pittsburgh Compound B (PiB) PET amyloid imaging was performed in 150 of the participants and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) was obtained in 149 of them.

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It was found that degradation of FMAR was significantly associated with both markers of preclinical AD, especially among women but not men. This suggests that FMAR may be a new biomarker for AD before cognitive symptoms begin.

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"Our day-to-day movements that are subconscious can reveal changes in the brain that may occur many years before symptoms show. If validated in future studies, this may provide a window of opportunity for early treatments and motivate the modification of existing risk factors," says co-first author Lei Gao, MD, assistant professor of Anesthesiology at MGH, and clinical director of the Medical Biodynamics Program in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at the Brigham.

However, shortcomings of the study like homogeneity in race or ethnicity require further external validation and replication.

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"We're very excited to see FMAR applied for the early detection of AD. This kind of approach could potentially guide research on AD and allow us to shift from focusing solely on cognition to improving motor functions that may link AD to other disorders, including sleep/circadian disorders," says co-senior author Kun Hu, Ph.D., director of the Brigham's Medical Biodynamics Program and a physiologist in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders in the Departments of Medicine and Neurology at the Brigham.

Source-Medindia