Poster No:
324
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Afrina Sallehuddin1, Mazlyfarina Mohamad2, Neil Mennie3, Rogayah A Razak4, Mohd Azmarul A Aziz5, Mizhanim Mohamad Shahimin1, Hazlina Mahadzir6, Leong Yuh Yang6, Norshuhada Sahnan7
Institutions:
1Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory Kuala Lumpur, 2Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah persekutuan, 3University of Nottingham Malaysia, Semenyih, Selangor, 4UCSI, Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory Kuala Lumpur, 5Universiti Sains Malaysia, Gelugor, Penang, 6Hospital Chanselor Tunku Mukhriz, Cheras, Federal Territory Kuala Lumpur, 7UKM Specialist Children's Hospital, Cheras, Federal Territory Kuala Lumpur
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Leong Yuh Yang, MD
Hospital Chanselor Tunku Mukhriz
Cheras, Federal Territory Kuala Lumpur
Introduction:
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is the transitional stage of cognitive changes of normal aging, and early stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD). A decline in lexical-semantic processing is one of the earliest determinants of MCI, and language tasks are shown to be sensitive to changes in cognitive deficits. However, most neuroimaging studies identifying disruptions in language performance have only focused on a single-modality approach. -Therefore, this study aims to investigate whether combining two modalities, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and eye-tracking (ET) data during language comprehension tasks, can provide better accuracy in classifying individuals with MCI from healthy cognitive aging (HCA) adults.
Methods:
Twenty-three elderly participants (MCI = 8, HCA =15) between the age of 50-70 years old were recruited within Klang Valley, Malaysia. During both task-based fMRI and ET, participants engaged in a Semantic Battery Assessment for Malay, consisting of object and action-categorized images. Participants were instructed to select the image that best describes the word and sentence depicted. Cognitive-based Stroop Task was also performed following the completion of the battery assessment. For the result analysis, the fMRI data for brain region identification was analyzed using Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM12), followed by Gaze Point for ET data.
Results:
For HCA adults, greater activation was predominantly found in the left inferior occipital gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, and left parietal lobe regions as compared to the MCI patients. Suggesting that these areas are involved in language processing. For ET, higher saccadic regression, and irregular movements were identified in subjects who displayed weaker temporal activation whilst performing the task. Poorer behavioral performance scores were found to be consistent with the same participants across the two groups.
Conclusions:
Preliminary findings suggest that the combination of fMRI and ET data during the Semantic Battery Assessment for Malay provides higher accuracy in identifying the correlation between neural activation with eye-movement behavior among Malaysian elderly adults. Predominant areas (i.e., IFG, MTG, and pFIG) associated with word comprehension were found in this study and were positively correlated with the fixation duration and accuracy response. We aim to improve further by recruiting a larger sample size, and potentially explore further with machine learning.
Disorders of the Nervous System:
Neurodegenerative/ Late Life (eg. Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s) 1
Language:
Language Comprehension and Semantics 2
Lifespan Development:
Aging
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI)
Other Methods
Keywords:
Aging
FUNCTIONAL MRI
Language
STRUCTURAL MRI
Other - Mild Cognitive Impairment
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Provide references using author date format
1. Burke, D. M., & Shafto, M. A. (2004). Aging and language production. Current directions in psychological science, 13(1), 21-24.
2. Poirier, G., Ohayon, A., Juranville, A., Mourey, F., & Gaveau, J. (2021). Deterioration, compensation and motor control processes in healthy aging, mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer’s disease. Geriatrics, 6(1), 33.
3. Readman, M. R., Polden, M., Gibbs, M. C., Wareing, L., & Crawford, T. J. (2021). The potential of naturalistic eye movement tasks in the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease: a review. Brain Sciences, 11(11), 1503.
4. Groznik, V., Možina, M., Lazar, T., Georgiev, D., & Sadikov, A. (2021, July). Gaze behaviour during reading as a predictor of mild cognitive impairment. In 2021 IEEE EMBS International Conference on Biomedical and Health Informatics (BHI) (pp. 1-4). IEEE.