Contact person: Dr Jane Alty
The future in our hands: Screening for preclinical Alzheimer's disease by analysing hand movements using TAS Test
Did you know that certain patterns of hand movements are associated with higher risk of developing dementia in the future? TAS Test, or Tasmanian Test, is a newly developed computer test that analyses a range of brain functions and aims to detect the earliest brain changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease 10-20 years before any cognitive (thinking, memory) symptoms.
TAS Test will recruit adults aged over 50 years old from Tasmania (ISLAND Project and Tasmanian Healthy Brain Project) and Sydney and analyse the speed and reaction time of their hands, as well as memory for sequences and shapes, visual processing, speech and language functions. We will compare TasTest results with other validated measures of dementia risk such as blood biomarkers and cognitive tests to help us work out the most discriminating computer tests of early dementia risk. Detecting risk at an early stage will give people the opportunity to modify risk factors before they develop significant cognitive decline.
Objectives:
This Tasmanian-developed test aims to solve a worldwide problem: to reduce the prevalence of dementia by identifying people who are at highest risk of developing dementia in the future and targeting risk reduction.
Research Team:
Wicking Dementia Centre:
- Dr Jane Alty
- Prof James Vickers
- Prof Anna King
- Dr Kate Lawler
- Dr Edward Hill
- Mr Aidan Bindoff
- Dr Larissa Bartlett
- Mr Chris Parker
ICT:
- A/Prof Quan Bai
- Dr Saurabh Garg
- Dr Mira Park
Psychology:
PhD students:
Masters student:
- Guan Huang
Honours Student:
- Neda Radfer
Collaborators:
- Professor Sharon Naismith, University of Sydney
- Professor David Hogg, University of Leeds, UK
Funding:
- The TAS Test project was awarded a 5 year NHMRC Ideas grant of $899,782 2021-2025
- Renjie Li and Xinyi Wang were awarded UTAS cross-college (Wicking CHM-ICT COSE) PhD scholarships
