Multimodal Identification of Alzheimer's Disease: A Review

Abstract: Alzheimer's disease is a progressive neurological disorder characterized by cognitive impairment and memory loss. With the increasing aging population, the incidence of AD is continuously rising, making early diagnosis and intervention an urgent need. In recent years, a considerable number of teams have applied computer-aided diagnostic techniques to early classification research of AD. Most studies have utilized imaging modalities such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and electroencephalogram (EEG). However, there have also been studies that attempted to use other modalities as input features for the models, such as sound, posture, biomarkers, cognitive assessment scores, and their fusion. Experimental results have shown that the combination of multiple modalities often leads to better performance compared to a single modality. Therefore, this paper will focus on different modalities and their fusion, thoroughly elucidate the mechanisms of various modalities, explore which methods should be combined to better harness their utility, analyze and summarize the literature in the field of early classification of AD in recent years, in order to explore more possibilities of modality combinations.