Neuroscience and Neurochemistry

Final goal of this research is to classify the levels of preclinical stage of dementia. A neuropsychological test named CKPT (color word pick-out test) was invented for the purpose under the consideration that the test should be able to detect the slight disorder of prefrontal lobe. The test was composed of two tasks. At the first task, a subject reads a story including color words which are printed by different color, picking-out them and checking if the meaning of the color and printed color is correspondent or not. It is an application of Stroop effect. For the second task the subject answers the questions about the episode of the story without seeing it. Namely he must pick-up color words and memorizes the episode of the story simultaneously. Prefrontal lobe measurements using near infrared spectroscopy recognize that CKPT activated prefrontal lobe more than Kawashima arithmetic drill, recalling 5 numbers in order and recalling 5 numbers in inverse order. Comparison of Ritchie check list, MMSE (mini mental state examination), FAB (frontal assessment battery), WCST (Wisconsin card sorting test) was done for the ordinary elderly as criterion-related validity of CKPT. Correlation between CKPT and WCST was recognized. And also the shape of the histograms of CKPT and WCST showed normal distribution. CKPT and MMSE were applied to the abnormal elderly whose MMSE was under 27. Their score of CKPT remained almost under the average-1.5SD. About 5000 elderly took CKPT and the results were used to make the criterion of CKPT. Now we would like to get some collaborating partners who want to translate CKPT in other language.