Home › Research › Cognitive tests and assessment
Character-level linguistic biomarkers for precision assessment of cognitive decline: a symbolic recurrence approach
Mekulu K, Aqlan F, Yang H.. Frontiers in aging neuroscience, 2025-12-09
Topic: Risk, prevention and care in population studies
Early-stage Alzheimer's disease (AD) remains difficult to assess using conventional linguistic or cognitive assessments, which often overlook subtle and individualized disruptions in speech. In this work, we propose a novel biomarker discovery framework that leverages fine-grained, character-level information from speech transcripts to capture these early cognitive changes. By encoding transcripts symbolically at the character level and applying recurrence quantification analysis (RQA), we generate interpretable recurrence plots that reveal temporal dynamics in speech patterns such as pauses, repetitions, and hesitations. Siamese neural networks are then used to learn embeddings from these recurrence representations, enabling the discovery of discriminative linguistic biomarkers associated with cognitive decline. Applied to the DementiaBank corpus, our approach uncovers meaningful character-level signatures and enables visualization of subtle cognitive disruptions through recurrence plots. These findings suggest that character-level temporal patterns may offer a promising new direction for digital biomarker discovery in dementia research, complementing traditional word-level analyses and enhancing interpretability for clinical applications.
Cite this study APA, Vancouver, BibTeX · download .bib or .ris
APA 7th
Mekulu, K., Aqlan, F., & Yang, H. (2025). Character-level linguistic biomarkers for precision assessment of cognitive decline: a symbolic recurrence approach. Frontiers in aging neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2025.1681124
Vancouver
Mekulu K, Aqlan F, Yang H. Character-level linguistic biomarkers for precision assessment of cognitive decline: a symbolic recurrence approach. Frontiers in aging neuroscience. 2025. doi:10.3389/fnagi.2025.1681124. PMID: 41446371.
BibTeX
@article{mekulu2025-41446371,
author = {Mekulu, K. and Aqlan, F. and Yang, H.},
title = {{Character-level linguistic biomarkers for precision assessment of cognitive decline: a symbolic recurrence approach}},
journal = {Frontiers in aging neuroscience},
year = {2025},
doi = {10.3389/fnagi.2025.1681124},
pmid = {41446371},
url = {https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2025.1681124}
}
Built from the record alzhub holds for this paper, not looked up. Volume, issue and page numbers are not held in the record. Check the citation against the original before you use it.
Key findings
- Siamese neural networks are then used to learn embeddings from these recurrence representations, enabling the discovery of discriminative linguistic biomarkers associated with cognitive decline.
- These findings suggest that character-level temporal patterns may offer a promising new direction for digital biomarker discovery in dementia research, complementing traditional word-level analyses and enhancing interpretability for clinical applications.
Study details
- Evidence strengthLow
How this study scored 45/100
Published in a peer-reviewed journal. Scored zero for study design, sample size, effect reported, studied in people and randomised / blinded because the record does not state it. We have no data on journal's citation record, 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 26 of the 58 points we could judge it on, which is 45 out of 100.
| Component | Points | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Journal tier | 7 / 10 | Tier 3 — peer-reviewed journal (Frontiers in aging neuroscience) |
| Journal's citation record | — / 4 | No journal record from OpenAlex — left out of this score |
| Study design | 0 / 12 | No study design recorded — scores zero, not guessed (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Strength of evidence | 1 / 5 | Rated “low” in our summary |
| Peer-review validation | 10 / 10 | Peer-reviewed. Published as an article in a named peer-reviewed journal. |
| How recent | 4 / 5 | 2025 — within 3 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 | 0 / 3 | No effect size reported — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| 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 | 2 / 2 | Indexed in PubMed (PMID 41446371) |
| Free to read | 2 / 2 | Free to read |
| Points | 26 / 58 | Scored on 11 of 20 parts. We have no data for the rest, so they are left out: 26 of the 58 points we could judge it on is 45 out of 100. |
| Total | 45 / 100 | — |
What each of these 20 components measures, and what this score is not →
Read the original
Free copy unknown: no free-copy check has an answer for this record yet. That does not mean it is paywalled.
Related
Studies in the library that share something with this one. The line above each title says what.
Related studies in Cognitive tests and assessment
Also tagged “precision”
3 studies in the library carry the topic tag “precision”; these are this study's neighbours in a fixed, alphabetical-by-hash tour of them, not the closest in content. All 3 tagged studies.