Identifying Preclinical Alzheimer’s Disease Using Everyday Driving Behavior: Proof of Concept

Abstract

We examined whether driving behavior can predict preclinical Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Data from 131 cognitively normal older adults with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and/or positron emission tomography (PET) biomarkers were examined with naturalistic driving behavior. Receiver operating characteristic curves were used to predict the highest 10%, 25%, and 50% of values for CSF tau/Aβ₄₂, ptau₁₈₁/Aβ₄₂, or amyloid PET. Six in vivo driving variables alone yielded area under the curves (AUC) from 0.64–0.82. Addition of age, Apolipoprotein ɛ4, and neuropsychological measures to the models improved the AUC (0.81 to 0.90). Driving can be used as novel neurobehavioral marker to identify presence of preclinical AD.