The Rapid Naming Test: Neuroanatomical validity and clinical utility

The Rapid Naming Test (RNT) is a tablet-administered confrontation naming task. We evaluated its concurrent validity, neuroanatomical correlates, sensitivity to cognitive impairment, and discriminant validity across neurodegenerative syndromes.

We compared RNT performance of 263 healthy adults (mean [SD] age = 73.6 [9.3]; 60.5% female) and 185 people with neurodegenerative syndromes (mean [SD] age = 68.3 [9.0]; 38.9% female), including primary progressive aphasias (PPA). RNT performance were correlated with traditional cognitive test performance and with regional gray matter volumes using voxel-based morphometry.

RNT performance was associated with language, memory, executive function, and processing speed (p < 0.05), as well as with gray matter volume in the left insula, temporal pole, fusiform gyrus, and the inferior and middle temporal gyri. The RNT was sensitive to cognitive impairment (AUC = 0.90, 95% CI 0.87-0.93), with the greatest impairments in people with logopenic and semantic variant PPA.

The RNT is sensitive to cognitive impairment and associated with brain regions involved in language and cognitive control, with left hemisphere predominance.

The Rapid Naming Test (RNT) is a 1-min tablet-based confrontation naming task.The pattern of performance across clinical cohorts supports the construct validity of the RNT.RNT performance was associated with gray matter volumes in regions important for object recognition and semantic knowledge.Age adjusted norms of the RNT were sensitive to mild cognitive impairment.