Gamma-Music Based Intervention for Mild Alzheimer's Disease

Mild AD participants will be ages 55-90, amnestic (single or multiple domain) who perform below an education- adjusted cut-off score on the Logical Memory II subscale delayed paragraph recall of the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R LM-IIa) (Wechsler 1987) (≥16 years: ≤8; 8-15 years: ≤4; 0-7 years: ≤2), have a CDR global score of 0.5 (with a memory box score of 0.5 or 1), have an MMSE score of 20-24, and have preserved instrumental activities of daily living (ADL) as determined by the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study ADL Prevention Instrument (ADCS ADL-PI). All participants will be medically stable. Participants will not have significant cerebrovascular disease determined by history of stroke, and will have a Modified Hachinski Ischemic score (Rosen et al. 1980) of ≤ 4. Participants will not have significant psychiatric disorders including a Geriatric Depression Scale (long form) (Yesavage et al. 1982) of ≤10, and will not have a history of substance or alcohol abuse. All participants must be on stable doses of any medications with psychotropic effects (including cholinesterase inhibitors, memantine, and antidepressants) for at least 3 months prior to randomization. Participants will be screened to be amyloid positive via plasma test. They must also have no contraindications to MRI scanning, and will have a study partner who is able to provide collateral information about the participant. A pure tone audiogram will be administered to ensure that participants have no more than mild levels of hearing loss (\<40dB). If a subject fails audiometric screening, they will be excluded from the study and provided with a list of audiologists. An Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved telephone screen will be used for demographic information, study inclusion/exclusion criteria and MRI contraindications. Participants will complete an MRI screening questionnaire before each MRI session.