Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37649070›Full record

ArticleAlzheimer's research & therapy2023

Automating Rey Complex Figure Test scoring using a deep learning-based approach: a potential large-scale screening tool for cognitive decline.

Jun Young Park, Eun Hyun Seo, Hyung-Jun Yoon, Sungho Won, Kun Ho Lee

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Alzheimer's research & therapy, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
10citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
3.8field-weighted citation impact, top 6% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 17 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. AI in Medical Questionnaires: Scoping ReviewJournal of medical Internet research · 2025
    Pooled it
  2. Computer Vision Scoring of Figure Copy and Recall.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.

Jun Young Park *Gwangju Alzheimer's & Related Dementia Cohort Research Center, Chosun University, Gwangju, 61452, South Korea.
Eun Hyun Seo *Gwangju Alzheimer's & Related Dementia Cohort Research Center, Chosun University, Gwangju, 61452, South Korea.
Hyung-Jun YoonDepartment of Neuropsychiatry, College of Medicine, Chosun University, Gwangju, South Korea.
Sungho WonDepartment of Public Health Sciences, Graduate School of Public Health, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, South Korea. won1@snu.ac.kr.
Kun Ho LeeGwangju Alzheimer's & Related Dementia Cohort Research Center, Chosun University, Gwangju, 61452, South Korea. leekho@chosun.ac.kr.
Chosun University · KRSeoul National University · KR

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundThe Rey Complex Figure Test (RCFT) has been widely used to evaluate the neurocognitive functions in various clinical groups with a broad range of ages. However, despite its usefulness, the scoring method is as complex as the figure. Such a complicated scoring system can lead to the risk of reducing the extent of agreement among raters. Although several attempts have been made to use RCFT in clinical settings in a digitalized format, little attention has been given to develop direct automatic scoring that is comparable to experienced psychologists. Therefore, we aimed to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) scoring system for RCFT using a deep learning (DL) algorithm and confirmed its validity.

methodsA total of 6680 subjects were enrolled in the Gwangju Alzheimer's and Related Dementia cohort registry, Korea, from January 2015 to June 2021. We obtained 20,040 scanned images using three images per subject (copy, immediate recall, and delayed recall) and scores rated by 32 experienced psychologists. We trained the automated scoring system using the DenseNet architecture. To increase the model performance, we improved the quality of training data by re-examining some images with poor results (mean absolute error (MAE) [Formula: see text] 5 [points]) and re-trained our model. Finally, we conducted an external validation with 150 images scored by five experienced psychologists.

resultsFor fivefold cross-validation, our first model obtained MAE = 1.24 [points] and R-squared ([Formula: see text]) = 0.977. However, after evaluating and updating the model, the performance of the final model was improved (MAE = 0.95 [points], [Formula: see text] = 0.986). Predicted scores among cognitively normal, mild cognitive impairment, and dementia were significantly different. For the 150 independent test sets, the MAE and [Formula: see text] between AI and average scores by five human experts were 0.64 [points] and 0.994, respectively.

conclusionWe concluded that there was no fundamental difference between the rating scores of experienced psychologists and those of our AI scoring system. We expect that our AI psychologist will be able to contribute to screen the early stages of Alzheimer's disease pathology in medical checkup centers or large-scale community-based research institutes in a faster and cost-effective way.

Indexed as

Alzheimer DiseaseCognitive DysfunctionDeep LearningAlgorithmsArtificial IntelligenceHumansAlzheimer’s diseaseArtificial intelligenceConvolutional neural networkDeep learningRey Complex Figure TestScoring

Identifiers

PMID37649070
PMCPMC10466875
OpenAlexW4386303894

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.