CAMBRIDGE NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TEST AUTOMATED BATTERY (CANTAB) - A FACTOR-ANALYTIC STUDY OF A LARGE-SAMPLE OF NORMAL ELDERLY VOLUNTEERS

The CANTAB battery was administered to a large group (n = 787) of elde rly volunteers in the age range from 55 to 80 years. This battery, whi ch is based on tests used to identify the neural substrates of learnin g and memory in nonhuman primates, has now been extensively used in th e assessment of various forms of dementia and also validated on patien ts with neurosurgical lesions of the frontal and temporal lobes. The t ests employed were pattern and spatial recognition, simultaneous and d elayed matching to sample, learning of visuospatial paired associates, a matching to sample, reaction time task and a test of spatial workin g memory. The sample was banded into different IQ bands based on perfo rmance on 5 standard tests of intelligence. The MMSE was also administ ered to exclude cases of possible dementia (n = 16) in the normal samp le. In general, performance declined with age and IQ, but these factor s did not interact. A factor analysis (with varimax rotation) identifi ed 4 factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, which accounted for over 60% ofthe variance. Factor 1 was equated with general learning and me mory ability and loaded significantly with the Intelligence scores; fa ctor 2 was related to speed of responding and loaded most heavily with Age, Comparisons were also made of performance on CANTAB of those sub jects with dementing scores on the MMSE and the lowest 5th percentile of the population sample. The results are discussed in terms of the ut ility of the CANTAB battery for the assessment of dementia and of the implications for theories of changes in cognitive function during norm al aging.