A condition characterized by primary clinical deficit in cognitive function that is acquired rather than developmental.
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Complex Attention
A cognitive domain that includes sustained attention, divided attention, selective attention, and processing speed.
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Executive Function
A cognitive domain involving planning, decision making, working memory, error correction, inhibition, and mental flexibility.
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Learning and Memory
A cognitive domain encompassing immediate memory, recent memory with free recall and recognition, long-term semantic and autobiographical memory, and implicit learning.
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Language
A cognitive domain with expressive components including naming and fluency, and receptive components for understanding language.
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Perceptual-Motor Function
A cognitive domain including visual perception, visuoconstructional abilities, praxis, and gnosis.
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Social Cognition
A cognitive domain involving recognition of emotions and theory of mind abilities.
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Delirium
An acute impairment of consciousness characterized by disturbance in attention and reduced awareness of the environment caused by a physiological condition, substance, medication, or toxin.
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Major Neurocognitive Disorder
Significant cognitive decline that interferes with independence in everyday activities, not explained by another mental disorder or delirium.
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Mild Neurocognitive Disorder
Modest cognitive decline that does not interfere with capacity for independence in everyday activities, not explained by another mental disorder or delirium.
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Alzheimer's Disease
A neurocognitive disorder with major problems in memory and learning, insidious onset, and evidence of amyloid and/or tau deposition.
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Vascular Neurocognitive Disorder
A neurocognitive disorder characterized by acute, stepwise, or fluctuating decline in cognition.
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Parkinson's Disease
A neurodegenerative disorder caused by loss of dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra, presenting with tremor, bradykinesia, rigidity, and gait problems.
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Processing Speed
The rate at which a person can perceive information, understand it, and respond to it.
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Mental Flexibility
The ability to shift thinking, adapt to new information, and change strategies when circumstances change.
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Recognition Memory
The ability to identify previously encountered information when it is presented again.
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Extracellular Amyloid Plaques
Clumps of abnormal beta-amyloid protein fragments that accumulate outside neurons, disrupting neural communication and causing neuronal death.
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Beta-Amyloid
A sticky protein fragment derived from amyloid precursor protein (APP) that aggregates to form plaques in Alzheimer's disease.
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Amyloid Precursor Protein
A larger protein that is normally broken down and cleared by the brain's waste systems, but in Alzheimer's is improperly cut into beta-amyloid fragments.
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Intraneuronal Neurofibrillary Tangles
Twisted fibers found inside neurons made of hyperphosphorylated tau protein that disrupts the cell's internal transport system.
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Tau Protein
A protein that normally stabilizes microtubules in neurons; in Alzheimer's disease it becomes hyperphosphorylated and forms tangles.
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Hyperphosphorylation
The process where tau protein receives too many phosphate groups, causing it to detach from microtubules and form neurofibrillary tangles.
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Microtubules
The internal transport system of neurons that moves nutrients and essential substances; destabilized by tau tangles in Alzheimer's disease.
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Pill Rolling Tremor
A characteristic tremor observed in Parkinson's disease, primarily occurring at rest in the hands.
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Bradykinesia
Slowness of movement characteristic of Parkinson's disease.
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Substantia Nigra
Brain region containing dopamine neurons that degenerate in Parkinson's disease.