NeuralCipher Research overview
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Background: Reviews addressing numerical and arithmetic deficits in neurodegenerative dementias have been conducted about 20 years ago and mainly focus on Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Due to the overlap of neuronal areas and circuits involved in numerical cognition with areas degenerating in neurodegenerative dementias such as Parkinson’s Disease Dementia (PDD) and Dementia with Lewy Bodies (LBD), an updated overview on available studies is needed. The aim of the planned systematic review and meta-analysis is therefore (1) to identify the prevalence of arithmetic deficits in patients with the neurodegenerative dementias AD, PDD, and LBD compared to Elderly without neurodegenerative diseases. (2) We aim at identifying patterns of deficits in various tasks of numerical cognition (differing regarding processing depth and required cognitive representations), which differ between different dementia groups. Methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis will be conducted following PRISMA criteria. Electronic databases of published and unpublished studies will be searched for relevant articles with predefined search terms. Studies are eligible if they report comparisons of patients with AD, PDD, and/ or LBD with an elderly control group without neurodegeneration regarding an empirical measure of numerical and/ or arithmetic function. Experimental case-control designs and group studies will be included. Studies without a control group, lacking an established diagnosis, only reporting neuro-imaging data and reviews will be excluded. Original study quality will be assessed with the ROBINS-I tool. Depending on the resulting data structure, meta-analyses will be conducted with random effects models or two-level models with nested effect sizes. Subgroups of the different dementias will be analysed using meta-regression. Discussion: Results of the current review cannot only be used to update the two existing reviews from early 2000s, but also to systematize numerical and arithmetic impairments in neurodegenerative dementias in the light of both neurocognitive theories of numerical cognition and neurodegeneration. It has the potential to estimate prevalence of numerical deficits in AD, PDD, and LBD, and compare numerical symptoms between different dementia entities. These findings can support clinical diagnostic and therapeutic guideline development based on more specific information regarding impairment in the respective neurodegenerative dementia. However, our systematic review and meta-analysis relies on the quality of the original studies and the quality of available risk of bias assessments.
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