Abstract
Background: The Memory Binding Test (MBT) is a novel test based on the
learning of two lists of words, developed to detect early memory impairment suggestive of
Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
Objective: To present and provide reference data of the Spanish MBT in a
midlife population of mainly first-degree descendants of AD patients.
Methods: 472 cognitively unimpaired subjects, aged 45 to 65 and participants
of the ALFA STUDY, were included. Raw scores were transformed to scaled scores on which
multivariate regression analysis was applied adjusting by age, gender, and education
level. A standard linear regression was employed to derive the scaled score adjusted.
Sociodemographic corrections were applied and an adjustment table was constructed.
Results: Performance was heterogeneously influenced by sociodemographic
factors. Age negatively influenced free recall. Education tends to have an influence in
the results showing lower performance with lower education level. Women tend to outperform
men in the learning of the first list and total recall. Only a few variables were
unaffected by sociodemographic factors such as those related to semantic proactive
interference (SPI) and to the retention of learned material. Our results point out that
some vulnerability to SPI is expectable in cognitively healthy subjects. Close to 100% of
the learned material was maintained across the delay interval.
Conclusion: This study contributes with reference data for the MBT providing
the necessary adjustments for sociodemographic characteristics. Our data may prove to be
useful for detecting asymptomatic at-risk candidates for secondary prevention studies of
AD.
