We developed a new cognitive test （Brain Assessment, BA） which can be performed through online without any medical professionals.　The important characteristic of the BA is that it can show whether the rate of the cognitive change due to aging is within normal limits or not.　We also assessed the effects of 5-years’ physical exercise with musical accompaniment （ExM） to community-dwelling normal elderly people （The Mihama-Kiho follow-up project）.　Compared to persons who did not participate in the class of physical exercise, the ExM group revealed better cognitive functions.　Even under the novel situation that a disease-modifying drug against Alzheimer’s disease, namely the aducanumab, had been developed, we can say that the early diagnosis of cognitive declines is the most important.

Cognitive reserve refers to an individual’s potential ability to suppress cognitive decline under the influence of brain pathology and aging.　This cognitive reserve is related to previous education, work, leisure activity experience, premorbid intelligence, etc., and is expected to affect the function from the onset of various psychiatric and neurological disorders.　It is important for medical professionals to keep such individual backgrounds and qualities in mind when considering the diagnosis and treatment of patients, the prospect of prognosis, the possibility of rehabilitation, etc.　We are developing a clinically useful cognitive reserve evaluation method for Japanese people by applying it to a wide range of age groups and are also examining cognitive reserve for psychiatric and neurological disorders.　We investigated the effect of cognitive reserve on cognitive function after tumor removal in patients with brain tumors.　The results showed that damage to the superior longitudinal fasciculus affected the decline in working memory after surgery, and the higher the complexity of work, the less likely it was that the working memory would decline after surgery.　Accumulation of cognitive activity is a factor that enhances cognitive reserve and may have acted protectively against the decline in working memory after brain tumor removal surgery.

This study was aimed to devise the shortened version of the Western Aphasia Battery （the WAB）.　A factor analysis of scores of 203 aphasics on the WAB was performed to clarify the factorial structure of the WAB.　Among eight factors which were interpreted, six factors oral language, phonogram word com-prehension, ideogram word comprehension, serial writing and copying, phonogram writing, and auditory comprehension were closely related to aphasia.　Thirteen test items with higher factor loading on the six factors were selected.　Further a cluster analysis was per-formed on the scores of the WAB.　From the result six test items of the thirteen test items were withdrawn and five test items were added.　Consequently the shortened version of the WAB consists of twelve test items taking twenty or thirty minutes for most aphasics.　It can classify about 90% of aphasics into Broca’s, Wernike’s, grobal, and amnestic aphasia.　The shortened version of the WAB is appropriate for screening aphasics.　And the using with the WAB makes it more practical.