To know or to not know: The importance of assessing awareness of cognitive function in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.

Abstract

Self-awareness has become an important research topic in Alzheimer's disease, with both decreased and increased awareness of cognitive deficits observed in the early stages of the disease. Understanding the pathological underpinning and factors associated with altered self-awareness is crucial for diagnostic purposes and its implications in patient treatment. The study by Furuya et al., showed that decreased awareness was associated with an increased likelihood of harboring amyloid pathology in cognitively normal and mild cognitive impairment participants. Here, we discuss these findings as well as psychiatric and social determinants of awareness and the need to refine tools to understand altered self-awareness.