OCTAL (Oxford Cognitive Testing Portal): A remote, cross-cultural cognitive assessment detects domain-specific aging and dementia
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The global rise in dementia necessitates scalable cognitive assessments that can evolve to serve both clinical and research applications. We present the Oxford Cognitive Testing Portal (OCTAL), a remote, browser-based platform providing performance metrics for memory, attention, visuospatial and executive function domains. Four validation studies (N=1,749) confirmed cross-cultural applicability, lifespan sensitivity and clinical utility. Task performance was equivalent in English- and Chinese-speaking younger adults and mapped domain-specific ageing trajectories in mid- to late-adulthood. In a memory-clinic cohort (N=194), a 5-minute OCTAL screen distinguished patients with Alzheimer’s disease dementia from subjective cognitive decline (AUC = 0.92), matching a standard paper-based test, while a 20-minute subset surpassed this (AUC = 0.98; p = 0.04). Test-retest reliability was very good (ICC ≥ 0.79; N = 118). OCTAL enables remote assessment for large-scale research and screening, with an open, modular architecture that makes it a uniquely sustainable and evolvable tool for the research community.
