Department of Psychology and Human Neuroscience Institute, Cornell University.
Neuropsychology. 2021 May;35(4):434-450. doi: 10.1037/neu0000736.
In the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), cognitive function was tracked across multiple years by a comprehensive neuropsychological battery. In this study, we examined the latent structure of the ADNI battery and evaluated the invariance of that structure among diagnostic groups and over time.
We used exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to investigate the invariance of the ADNI battery's latent factor structure among three diagnostic groups (healthy controls, patients with mild cognitive impairment, patients with Alzheimer's disease) over a 2-year interval (baseline, 6 months, 12 months, 24 months).
The results revealed a five-factor structure for the ADNI battery (memory, visuospatial processing, attention, language, executive function). This structure displayed configural invariance but not weak, strong, or strict invariance across the three diagnostic groups. Longitudinally, configural, weak, strong, and strict invariance were all established within each diagnostic group, except that strict invariance was rejected in healthy controls.
The ADNI battery assesses the same cognitive abilities in the three diagnostic groups, but test scores do not calibrate to these abilities equally in the respective groups, making certain statistics (e.g., factor scores) noncomparable between groups. Within each group, the latent structure and the numerical relations between individual tests and underlying factors remained invariant over 2 years, suggesting that this battery is a reliable tool for tracking longitudinal changes in specific cognitive abilities within individual diagnostic groups. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
在阿尔茨海默病神经影像学倡议（ADNI）中，通过综合神经心理学测试对认知功能进行了多年的跟踪。在这项研究中，我们检验了 ADNI 测试组合的潜在结构，并评估了该结构在不同诊断组和不同时间的不变性。
我们使用探索性和验证性因子分析来研究 ADNI 测试组合的潜在因子结构在三个诊断组（健康对照组、轻度认知障碍患者、阿尔茨海默病患者）之间的不变性，时间跨度为 2 年（基线、6 个月、12 个月、24 个月）。
结果显示 ADNI 测试组合具有五因子结构（记忆、视空间处理、注意力、语言、执行功能）。该结构在三个诊断组之间表现出形态不变性，但不具有弱、强或严格不变性。从纵向来看，在每个诊断组内都建立了形态、弱、强和严格不变性，除了在健康对照组中拒绝了严格不变性。
ADNI 测试组合评估了三个诊断组的相同认知能力，但在各自的组中，测试分数不能同等地校准到这些能力，使得某些统计数据（例如，因子分数）在组间不可比较。在每个组内，潜在结构和个体测试与潜在因子之间的数值关系在 2 年内保持不变，这表明该测试组合是一种可靠的工具，可用于跟踪个体诊断组内特定认知能力的纵向变化。（PsycInfo 数据库记录（c）2021 APA，保留所有权利）。
