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An explainable multimodal framework for exploring depression-associated speech representations in Alzheimer’s disease
Hassan H, Patel D, Aagela H, Johnson A.. medRxiv, 2026-10-01
Topic: Brain imaging, connectivity and assessment
By comparing these unsupervised representations to a depression-labelled source corpus, one cluster demonstrated mathematical proximity (measured via cosine similarity in a shared latent space) to the source depression centroid. We therefore explored whether speech representations from an Alzheimer’s disease cohort could be compared with a separate depression-labelled speech dataset. Importantly, this result does not demonstrate that the participants had depression, because depression was not independently assessed in the Alzheimer’s disease cohort.
Key findings
- By comparing these unsupervised representations to a depression-labelled source corpus, one cluster demonstrated mathematical proximity (measured via cosine similarity in a shared latent space) to the source depression centroid.
- We therefore explored whether speech representations from an Alzheimer’s disease cohort could be compared with a separate depression-labelled speech dataset.
- Importantly, this result does not demonstrate that the participants had depression, because depression was not independently assessed in the Alzheimer’s disease cohort.
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Study details
- Study designlongitudinal study
- Effect size92.73%
- Evidence strengthModerate
How this study scored 16/100
Preprint — not yet peer-reviewed. It scored 39 on the same rubric, but non-peer-reviewed sources are capped at 16, so it shows as 16. Scored zero for sample size, studied in people and randomised / blinded because the record does not state it. We have no data on times cited, citations per year, impact for its field and year, cited by studies here, still being cited, senior author's track record, institution's track record and multi-centre collaboration, so those were left out: it earned 24 of the 62 points we could judge it on, which is 39 out of 100.
| Component | Points | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Journal tier | 2 / 10 | Tier 4 — not a peer-reviewed journal (medRxiv) |
| Journal's citation record | 0 / 4 | Not a journal article, so the journal's record does not count |
| Study design | 7 / 12 | A longitudinal study following the same people over time |
| Strength of evidence | 3 / 5 | Rated “moderate” in our summary |
| Peer-review validation | 4 / 10 | Preprint — not yet peer-reviewed. Hosted on a preprint server. |
| How recent | 5 / 5 | 2026 — within 1 year(s) of the newest study here |
| Sample size | 0 / 4 | Participant count not stated — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Effect reported | 2 / 3 | Effect reported as a number, without an interval or test |
| Studied in people | 0 / 3 | Not stated whether this was studied in people — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Randomised / blinded | 0 / 2 | No randomisation or blinding stated — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Times cited | — / 7 | No citation count (not found in OpenAlex) — left out of this score |
| Citations per year | — / 5 | No citation count or no year — left out of this score |
| Impact for its field and year | — / 6 | No field-weighted citation impact (OpenAlex has none yet) — left out of this score |
| Cited by studies here | — / 6 | Not yet checked against this library's citation graph — left out of this score |
| Still being cited | — / 4 | No yearly citation counts — left out of this score |
| Senior author's track record | — / 4 | Senior author's record not available — left out of this score |
| Institution's track record | — / 3 | No institution listed in OpenAlex — left out of this score |
| Multi-centre collaboration | — / 3 | Institutions not listed — left out of this score |
| Indexed in PubMed | 1 / 2 | Not in PubMed, but has a DOI |
| Free to read | 0 / 2 | Behind a paywall — scores zero |
| Points | 24 / 62 | Scored on 12 of 20 parts. We have no data for the rest, so they are left out: 24 of the 62 points we could judge it on is 39 out of 100. |
| Total | 39 / 100 | Capped to 16 because this is not a peer-reviewed article. |
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Cite this study APA, Vancouver, BibTeX · download .bib or .ris
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APA 7th
Hassan, H., Patel, D., Aagela, H., & Johnson, A. (2026). An explainable multimodal framework for exploring depression-associated speech representations in Alzheimer’s disease. medRxiv. https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.09.29.26364278
Vancouver
Hassan H, Patel D, Aagela H, Johnson A. An explainable multimodal framework for exploring depression-associated speech representations in Alzheimer’s disease. medRxiv. 2026. doi:10.64898/2026.09.29.26364278.
BibTeX
@article{hassan2026-c9f84faf,
author = {Hassan, H. and Patel, D. and Aagela, H. and Johnson, A.},
title = {{An explainable multimodal framework for exploring depression-associated speech representations in Alzheimer’s disease}},
journal = {medRxiv},
year = {2026},
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.29.26364278},
url = {https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.09.29.26364278}
}