The Assessment of Cognition in Translational Medicine: A Contrast Between the Approaches Used in Alzheimer's Disease and Major Depressive Disorder

A challenge to the endeavor of assessing cognition in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the lack of reliability, validity, and responsiveness of the tests that have been traditionally employed. A further consideration is the lack of continuity between tests preferred for use in memory clinics and other specialist centers as compared with those selected for use in clinical drug trials of putative new therapies for AD. In contrast to the lack of continuity in AD, in other indications, such as major depressive disorder (MDD), similar paradigms, though different tests, have been employed to detect cognitive deficits, to measure cognitive change and, more recently, to identify cognitive markers that might indicate risk factors for disease onset. In this chapter, we contrast the assessment of cognition in AD and MDD, especially in the context of identifying cognitive deficits and the measurement of efficacy.