In a global effort to better understand and effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease, Embic and the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) have partnered to provide Embic’s digital cognitive biomarkers to the global research community. Qualified researchers can request access to the full ADNI dataset, including Embic’s seven digital biomarkers, each of which quantifies a particular cognitive process of encoding or retrieval.
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Embic’s unique digital cognitive biomarkers are generated from a mathematical model of cognition that draws on the company’s proprietary dataset of two-million, normally aging individuals, collected over a 20-year period. The model, which was validated in an NIH-funded study (Grant No.: R44AG065126), quantifies the unobservable processes of information encoding and retrieval that allow individuals to perform a vast range of cognitive functions including memory, orientation, and verbal fluency. Isolating and quantifying these fundamental cognitive processes provides the research community with unprecedented insight into cognitive function and enables precise evaluation of overall brain health.
Junko Hara, Ph.D., Embic‘s chief scientific officer, commented, “Information encoding and retrieval are the primary cognitive functions that underlie cognitive ability. Digital biomarkers that quantify these processes are essential for detecting and understanding subtle but distinctive changes in brain health, including the early identification of emerging Alzheimer’s disease. Making these innovative measures available to the global research community is a step toward accelerating clinical trial enrollment, developing new therapeutics, and delivering timely care.”
By making these biomarkers available for researchers through ADNI, Embic will play a meaningful role in the worldwide effort to optimize cognitive health for an aging population.
About ADNI: ADNI is a global research study that actively supports the investigation and development of treatments that slow or stop the progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In this multisite longitudinal study, researchers at 63 sites in the US and Canada track the progression of AD in the human brain with clinical, imaging, genetic and biospecimen biomarkers through the process of normal aging, early mild cognitive impairment (EMCI), and late mild cognitive impairment (LMCI) to dementia or AD. The overall goal of ADNI is to validate biomarkers for use in Alzheimer’s disease clinical treatment trials.