# Combining assessment of cognition, eye movement, and gait in naturalistic settings to differentiate subclinical Alzheimer's pathology.

> **NIH NIH R01** · WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES · 2020 · $392,315

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Current treatments for Alzheimer's disease are minimally effective in slowing the progression because they
can only be prescribed once symptoms of the disease are reported. By this time, irreversible neuron death
and brain atrophy have occurred. Finding new, earlier biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease is imperative to
developing new treatments that can target early prevention of neuropathological changes. Naturalistic tasks,
including complex, everyday tasks and performing a cognitive task while walking (i.e., dual-tasking), require
coordination of executive function, working memory, and visuomotor coordination, which are the cognitive
functions that are typically impacted early on in Alzheimer's disease. Subtle declines in cognitive function
may impact cognitive processing, visuospatial attention, and motor function, leading to impaired ability to
perform these naturalistic tasks well before most patients report symptoms and thus may provide new, earlier
biomarkers of high risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Therefore, the goals of this project are to
determine if measures of visuospatial attention and gait smoothness during performance of complex,
everyday tasks involving walking can differentiate between older adults at high risk of developing Alzheimer's
disease (pathological levels of beta amyloid accumulation), low-risk older adults, and young adults (Aim 1),
and identify if dual-task costs on gait, visuospatial attention, and cognition can differentiate between high-risk
older adults, low-risk older adults, and young adults (Aim 2).
Thirty high-risk older adults (≥70 to ≤85 years), 30 low-risk older adults ((≥70 to ≤85 years), and 30 young
adults will be assessed in 5 conditions: simulated grocery shopping task, walking on uneven ground task,
cognitive single-task (performing an inhibition-executive function and a working memory task while seated),
gait single-task (walking at fastest comfortable speed and at fastest comfortable speed while stepping over
obstacles, without any simultaneous cognitive task), and dual-task walking (walking while performing
cognitive tasks). This project will employ the concurrent recording of gait, eye movements, and cognitive
performance to identify how gait smoothness, visuospatial attention, and dual-task costs on gait, visuospatial
attention, and cognition can differentiate those at high- versus low-risk of developing Alzheimer's disease
while performing naturalistic tasks. The proposed project is a supplement to B-NET (R01AG052419), a
longitudinal study examining beta amyloid accumulation, neurocognitive function, and mobility functioning in
older adults. Adding the proposed assessments to the data already collected in the parent study will provide
an innovative examination of if a fine-grained analysis of cognitive processing, visuospatial attention, and
smoothness of gait during naturalistic everyday tasks can serve as an early biomarker of risk of developing
Alzheimer's dise...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10123632
- **Project number:** 3R01AG052419-04S1
- **Recipient organization:** WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES
- **Principal Investigator:** STEPHEN B. KRITCHEVSKY
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $392,315
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2017-09-30 → 2022-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10123632

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10123632, Combining assessment of cognition, eye movement, and gait in naturalistic settings to differentiate subclinical Alzheimer's pathology. (3R01AG052419-04S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10123632. Licensed CC0.

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