First Steps Toward the French Validation of the Memory Binding Test (fMBT): Adaptation, Convergent Validity and Application to Normal Aging

The Memory Binding Test (MBT) allows to detect subtle memory impairment. The novelty is to target memory binding, known as early affected in prodromal Alzheimer’s disease. This study aims at adapting and validating the MBT into French (fMBT) and to explore the effect of normal aging (16 young adults and 14 older adults). The fMBT shows good to very good convergent validity with the RLRI-16, similar or slighly lower than those reported for the English version. The young adults have higher performance than the older adults in almost all scores except for the immediate recall of the first list of words and the cued recalls. The fMBT is as sensitive and specific than the RL/RI-16 to discriminate healthy older adults from young adults, but the fMBT was not associated with any ceiling effect making it relevant to test memory in younger population. The present study offers the very first steps toward the validation of the fMBT. It remains to determine whether the fMBT offers a better discriminability of subtle memory impairment.