Benchmarking speech biomarkers of Alzheimer's against cognitive and neural measures
INTRODUCTION: Digital speech biomarkers (DSBs) support the detection and monitoring of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in Latinos. However, they have not been benchmarked against standard cognitive and neuroimaging measures, missing a critical validation milestone. METHODS: Thirty-three AD patients and 33 healthy controls completed verbal fluency tasks, episodic memory and executive tests, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (volume) and functional MRI (fMRI) (connectivity) scans. Between-group machine learning classification was compared among fluency-derived DSBs, episodic and executive test scores, MRI, and fMRI measures. RESULTS: The fluency classifier's performance (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.84) was comparable (p > 0.14) to the episodic (AUC = 0.90), executive (AUC = 0.79), and structural (AUC = 0.90) classifiers and superior to the functional classifier (AUC = 0.65, p = 0.002). Top discriminating features were word length and frequency, both associated with right (pre)frontal volume upon adjusting for sociodemographic factors. DISCUSSION: DSBs appear non-inferior to standard cognitive and imaging measures, supporting scalable AD assessments in Latinos. HIGHLIGHTS: We examined digital speech biomarkers (DSBs) for detecting AD in Latinos. DSBs were benchmarked against cognitive and neuroimaging features. DSB-based classifiers matched or outperformed cognitive and brain classifiers. Top DSBs included word length, phonological neighborhood, and frequency. Word length and frequency correlated with right (pre)frontal brain volume.
Authors
- Teresita Montiel Ramos (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8563-5483)
- Lara Gauder (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6242-1546)
- Loreto Olavarría (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0217-041X)
- Luciana Ferrer
- Joaquín Ponferrada
- Alejandro Sosa Welford
- Franco J. Ferrante
- Fernando Henríquez
- Joaquín Valdés Bize
- Gonzalo Pérez
- Andrea Slachevsky
- Ivan Caro
- Adolfo M. García
- Cristina Besnier
- Agustín Ibañez
- Maria Luisa Gorno‐Tempini
Institutions
- Universidad de Santiago de Chile (CL)
- Universidad del Desarrollo (CL)
- Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (CL)
- University of California, San Francisco (US)
- Trinity College Dublin (IE)
- Adolfo Ibáñez University (CL)
- Universidad de Buenos Aires (AR)
- Clínica Alemana (CL)
- Istanbul Medipol University (TR)
- University of San Andrés (AR)
- Clínica Las Condes (CL)
- Centro Científico Tecnológico - San Juan (AR)
- Hospital del Salvador (CL)
- Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Salud (AR)
- University Memory and Aging Center (US)
- Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva (AR)
- Instituto de Neurociencia Biomédica (CL)
- Center for Climate and Resilience Research (CL)
- Global Brain Health Institute (US)
- Instituto Cardiovascular de Buenos Aires (AR)
- Fundación Ciencias Exactas y Naturales (AR)
- University of Chile (CL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Alzheimer s & Dementia
- Published
- 2026-04-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.71365
- Primary Topic
- Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Alzheimer's Association
- Wellcome Trust
- EU Joint Programme – Neurodegenerative Disease Research
- Global Brain Health Institute
- Rainwater Charitable Foundation
- Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo
- National Institutes of Health
- Tau Consortium
- Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica
- National Institute on Aging
- Fogarty International Center
- Fondo de Fomento al Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico
- Fondo de Financiamiento de Centros de Investigación en Áreas Prioritarias
- H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions