CBR Seminar Series: Stacy Andersen
CBR Seminar Series: Stacy Andersen, June 30, 2025
Title: Characterizing cognitive function and resilience to Alzheimer’s disease using digital technologies
Abstract: One obstacle to studying cognitive aging is the inability to identify cognitive impairment and cognitive change with adequately high sensitivity and specificity. Brain changes related to aging or to neurodegenerative diseases are known to begin years before substantial changes emerge on cognitive testing. The integration of digital technologies allows for the capture of high-precision data from spoken and written responses to cognitive test items that may capture changes in cognitive function earlier than traditional summary test scores. This talk will present findings from digital pen data showing differential patterns of motor and cognitive slowing on a coding test and preclinical differences in cognitive processing on a clock drawing test. It will also present preliminary data on lexical and temporal features extracted from digital voice recordings of verbal responses. These findings will demonstrate the clinical value of digital cognitive biomarkers across the spectrum from cognitive impairment to cognitive superaging.
Bio: Stacy Andersen, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and the co-director of the New England Centenarian Study. She is a multiple PI of the Resilience / Resistance to Alzheimer’s Disease in Centenarians and Their Offspring (RADCO) project and leads neurocognitive phenotyping protocols across multiple studies of longevity and healthy aging. As a behavioral neuroscientist, her research focuses on characterizing cognitive profiles of older adults, identifying factors associated with resilience to Alzheimer’s disease among centenarians and their family members, and developing novel methods of detecting cognitive change using digital technologies and behavioral features of cognitive test performance.
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