Lourens, SpencerZhang, YingLong, Jeffrey D.Paulsen, Jane S.2024-03-122024-03-122017Lourens S, Zhang Y, Long JD, Paulsen JS. Analysis of longitudinal censored semicontinuous data with application to the study of executive dysfunction: The Towers Task. Stat Methods Med Res. 2017;26(2):865-879. doi:10.1177/0962280214560187https://hdl.handle.net/1805/39174Executive dysfunction is a deficiency in skills of planning and problem solving that characterizes many neuropsychiatric disorders. The Towers Task is a commonly used measure of planning and problem solving for assessing executive function. Towers Task data are usually zero-inflated and right-censored, and ignoring these features can result in biased inference for the disease characterization of executive dysfunction. In this manuscript, a mixed-effects model for longitudinal censored semicontinuous data is developed for analyzing longitudinal Towers Task data from the PREDICT-HD study. The model is contrasted with current practice and implications for general use are discussed.en-USPublisher PolicyCognitive neuroscienceHuntington diseaseMixed-effect modelCensored dataSemicontinuous dataTowers TaskArticle