# Practice effects of daily functioning across the Alzheimer's disease spectrum

> **NIH NIH R01** · OREGON HEALTH & SCIENCE UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $467,040

## Abstract

Project Summary
The main objective of this new application is to demonstrate that individuals with low practice effects on
measures of daily functioning repeated across one week are more likely to cognitively progress over
the following year. This project would also examine if practice effects on these performance-based
functional scales differ across the disease spectrum in late adulthood by comparing older individuals
who are cognitively intact to those with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's disease. In an
exploratory aim, the relationship between practice effects on these functional scales and various
biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease (e.g., hippocampal volumes via MRI, amyloid deposition via PET,
APOE e4) will be studied. These findings would add to the supporting evidence of practice effects as a
marker of diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment response in normal aging, Mild Cognitive Impairment,
and dementing illnesses. However, it will extend our prior work by focusing on practice effects on
functional measures (whereas our prior work looked at practice effects on cognitive tests). By realizing
the aims of this pragmatic project, we would be able to offer more efficient screening of potential
participants for clinical trials, which would reduce participant burden and financial costs associated with
these trials. Practice effects could also be used to enrich trials with those more likely to progress and to
monitor treatment benefit as a proximal outcome measure. Practice effects also have considerable
clinical benefits for diagnosis and prognosis of cognitive disorders in late life. This project is consistent
with the mission of the National Institute on Aging.
Relevance. Current clinical trials in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's disease require
participants to progress/decline across the trial to accurately evaluate the experimental intervention.
Although existing biomarkers (e.g., tau and amyloid imaging) are being used to identify those most
likely to progress, these biomarkers are expensive and invasive. Cheaper, less invasive, and more
sensitive biomarkers are clearly needed to make these trials more efficient. We propose that practice
effects on performance-based functional measures might fill this important gap in the literature. In the
current pragmatic project, we expect to provide clinicians and researchers with a new tool (i.e., practice
effects on functional scales) for predicting cognitive decline in seniors with and without cognitive
impairments. We expect to provide supporting evidence to include practice effects in future clinical trials
in normal aging, Mild Cognitive Impairment, and Alzheimer's disease.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10831415
- **Project number:** 5R01AG073261-05
- **Recipient organization:** OREGON HEALTH & SCIENCE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** KEVIN M DUFF
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $467,040
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-08-15 → 2026-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10831415

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10831415, Practice effects of daily functioning across the Alzheimer's disease spectrum (5R01AG073261-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10831415. Licensed CC0.

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