NCT04860414: MAPEG

Prospective Monocentric Study of Taste in Patients With Minor or Major Cognitive Disorders Such as Alzheimer's, Through the Analysis of Gustatory Evoked Potentials.

Completed NA Last updated 15 December 2022

What this trial tests

NA trial testing Blood sampling in Cognitive Disorders in 45 participants. Completed in 17 June 2021.

Timeline

3 March 2021

Primary endpoint
17 June 2021

17 June 2021

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Dijon
Phase	NA
Status	Completed
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	non randomized
Design	parallel
Masking	none
Primary purpose	diagnostic
Enrollment	45
Start date	3 March 2021
Primary completion	17 June 2021
Estimated completion	17 June 2021
Sites	1 location across France

Drugs / interventions tested

• Blood sampling — full drug profile →
• Cognitive Assessment
• Subjective taste tests
• Objective taste tests

Conditions studied

• Cognitive Disorders — all drugs for Cognitive Disorders →

Sponsor

Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Dijon

Who can join

18 and older, any sex, with Cognitive Disorders. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

Approximately 24 million people worldwide suffer from dementia, with Alzheimer's disease being the most common cause. Alzheimer's disease typically progresses in three stages: presymptomatic, prodromal ("early onset" or minor cognitive impairment) and major cognitive impairment with loss of autonomy and significant psycho-behavioral symptoms. Efforts to counteract its expansion are increasing, and there is a need for biomarkers to identify the disease in its earliest stage in order to provide prompt treatment.

Faced with a episodic memory disorder, it is possible, thanks to certain criteria, highlighted by neuroimaging, or by biomarkers obtained by biological analysis of cerebrospinal fluid (during a lumbar puncture), to detect Alzheimer's disease from the prodromal stage, or even earlier. The main limitation of these criteria is their invasive nature. Other non-invasive biomarkers would therefore be useful to help diagnose Alzheimer's disease at an early stage. Gustatory evoked potentials (GEP), a technique for exploring taste sensory pathways, could meet these needs.

Indeed, GEPs are a method of exploring the gustatory sensory pathway based on the recording of cerebral electrical activity by electroencephalography (EEG). It is a painless, accessible, inexpensive and non-invasive technique. The alteration of gustatory functions is present in many neurological conditions, but often takes second place to sensory or motor symptoms. Rare studies have studied taste in patients with Alzheimer's disease, but they have demonstrated, using subjective tests only, an early gustatory impairment linked to a degeneration of the gustatory cortex. It was observed that the performance of subjects with minor or major cognitive impairment was weaker than that of healthy subjects, without the patient being aware of these taste disorders.

The aim of the study is to explore taste functions in patients with minor cognitive impairment, major cognitive impairment such as mild Alzheimer's disease, by comparing them to healthy subjects. For this purpose, we wish to compare the results of subjective taste tests (tasting solutions, especially salty ones, answering food preference questionnaires), parameters of taste evoked potentials recorded by electrodes stuck on the scalp and hormonal parameters obtained by blood sampling, between the three groups of subjects mentioned.

Publications & conference data

No peer-reviewed publications indexed yet for this trial. Completed trials usually publish results within 12-18 months.