Recognition and remote memory for odors, faces, and symbols were
assessed in patients with pathologically confirmed Lewy body variant of
Alzheimer's disease (LBV), patients with pathologically confirmed
Alzheimer's disease (AD), and healthy elderly controls. On
recognition memory tasks, LBV and AD patients showed significantly
lower discriminability (d′) than controls, particularly
for olfactory stimuli. However no significant differences were found in
the bias measure (c). When participants rated familiarity (a
proposed measure of remote memory) of olfactory stimuli LBV and AD
patients reported significantly lower familiarity than controls.
Familiarity ratings were significantly lower in LBV patients than in AD
patients for olfactory, but not for visual stimuli. Consistent with
prior reports, the LBV patients showed significantly poorer odor
thresholds than AD patients. The results suggest that recognition
memory for olfactory stimuli is impaired in LBV and AD. However,
patients with LBV are more impaired than patients with AD on tasks
requiring remote memory for olfactory but not visual stimuli. The
findings suggest that odor memory tasks may be useful in the assessment
of LBV and AD. (JINS, 2004, 10, 835–842.)
Ultrasensitive Detection of Plasma Amyloid-β as a Biomarker for Cognitively Normal Elderly Individuals at Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease