A retroactive spatial cue improved VSTM capacity in mild cognitive impairment and medial temporal lobe amnesia but not in healthy older adults

Abstract Epilepsy incidence and prevalence peaks in older adults yet systematic studies of brain ageing and cognition in older adults with epilepsy remain limited. Here, we characterize patterns of cortical atrophy and cognitive impairment in 73 older adults with temporal lobe epilepsy (>55 years) and compare these patterns to those observed in 70 healthy controls and 79 patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment, the prodromal stage of Alzheimer’s disease. Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy were recruited from four tertiary epilepsy surgical centres; amnestic mild cognitive impairment and control subjects were obtained from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative database. Whole brain and region of interest analyses were conducted between patient groups and controls, as well as between temporal lobe epilepsy patients with early-onset (age of onset <50 years) and late-onset (>50 years) seizures. Older adults with temporal lobe epilepsy demonstrated a similar pattern and magnitude of medial temporal lobe atrophy to amnestic mild cognitive impairment. Region of interest analyses revealed pronounced medial temporal lobe thinning in both patient groups in bilateral entorhinal, temporal pole, and fusiform regions (all P < 0.05). Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy demonstrated thinner left entorhinal cortex compared to amnestic mild cognitive impairment (P = 0.02). Patients with late-onset temporal lobe epilepsy had a more consistent pattern of cortical thinning than patients with early-onset epilepsy, demonstrating decreased cortical thickness extending into the bilateral fusiform (both P < 0.01). Both temporal lobe epilepsy and amnestic mild cognitive impairment groups showed significant memory and language impairment relative to healthy control subjects. However, despite similar performances in language and memory encoding, patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment demonstrated poorer delayed memory performances relative to both early and late-onset temporal lobe epilepsy. Medial temporal lobe atrophy and cognitive impairment overlap between older adults with temporal lobe epilepsy and amnestic mild cognitive impairment highlights the risks of growing old with epilepsy. Concerns regarding accelerated ageing and Alzheimer’s disease co-morbidity in older adults with temporal lobe epilepsy suggests an urgent need for translational research aimed at identifying common mechanisms and/or targeting symptoms shared across a broad neurological disease spectrum.

Download Full-text

Association between Sleep Disturbances and Medial Temporal Lobe Volume in Older Adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment Free of Lifetime History of Depression

Journal of Alzheimer s Disease ◽

10.3233/jad-190160 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 69 (2) ◽

pp. 413-421 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Kimberley Yuen ◽

Neda Rashidi-Ranjbar ◽

Nicolaas Paul L.G. Verhoeff ◽

Sanjeev Kumar ◽

Damien Gallagher ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

Temporal Lobe ◽

Medial Temporal Lobe ◽

Sleep Disturbances ◽

Lifetime History ◽

History Of ◽

History Of Depression

Download Full-text

Repetition Priming in Individuals with Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s Dementia: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Neuropsychology Review ◽

10.1007/s11065-021-09504-5 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Liselotte De Wit ◽

Vitoria Piai ◽

Pilar Thangwaritorn ◽

Brynn Johnson ◽

Deirdre O’Shea ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Systematic Review ◽

Older Adults ◽

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

Repetition Priming ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Healthy Older Adults ◽

Amnestic Mci ◽

Standard Mean Difference ◽

Priming Paradigm

AbstractThe literature on repetition priming in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is inconsistent, with some findings supporting spared priming while others do not. Several factors may explain these inconsistencies, including AD severity (e.g., dementia vs. Mild Cognitive Impairment; MCI) and priming paradigm-related characteristics. This systematic review and meta-analysis provides a quantitative summary of repetition priming in AD. We examined the between-group standard mean difference comparing repetition priming in AD dementia or amnestic MCI (aMCI; presumably due to AD) to controls. Thirty-two studies were selected, including 590 individuals with AD dementia, 267 individuals with amnestic MCI, and 703 controls. Our results indicated that both individuals with aMCI and AD dementia perform worse on repetition priming tasks than cognitively older adults. Paradigm-related moderators suggested that the effect size between studies comparing the combined aMCI or AD dementia group to cognitively healthy older adults was the highest for paradigms that required participants to produce, rather than identify, primes during the test phase. Our results further suggested that priming in AD is impaired for both conceptual and perceptual priming tasks. Lastly, while our results suggested that priming in AD is impaired for priming tasks that require deep processing, we were unable to draw firm conclusions about whether priming is less impaired in aMCI or AD dementia for paradigms that require shallow processing.

Download Full-text

Five-Year Change in Body Mass Index Predicts Conversion to Mild Cognitive Impairment or Dementia Only in APOE ɛ4 Allele Carriers

Journal of Alzheimer s Disease ◽

10.3233/jad-201360 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-11

Author(s):

Kylie R. Kadey ◽

John L. Woodard ◽

Allison C. Moll ◽

Kristy A. Nielson ◽

J. Carson Smith ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Body Mass Index ◽

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

Body Mass ◽

Carrier Status ◽

Healthy Older Adults ◽

E4 Allele ◽

Lifestyle Risk

Background: Body mass index (BMI) has been identified as an important modifiable lifestyle risk factor for dementia, but less is known about how BMI might interact with Apolipoprotein E ɛ4 (APOE ɛ4) carrier status to predict conversion to mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the interaction between APOE ɛ4 status and baseline (bBMI) and five-year BMI change (ΔBMI) on conversion to MCI or dementia in initially cognitively healthy older adults. Methods: The associations between bBMI, ΔBMI, APOE ɛ4 status, and conversion to MCI or dementia were investigated among 1,289 cognitively healthy elders from the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center (NACC) database. Results: After five years, significantly more carriers (30.6%) converted to MCI or dementia than noncarriers (17.6%), p < 0.001, OR = 2.06. Neither bBMI (OR = 0.99, 95%CI = 0.96–1.02) nor the bBMI by APOE interaction (OR = 1.02, 95%CI = 0.96–1.08) predicted conversion. Although ΔBMI also did not significantly predict conversion (OR = 0.90, 95%CI = 0.78–1.04), the interaction between ΔBMI and carrier status was significant (OR = 0.72, 95%CI = 0.53–0.98). For carriers only, each one-unit decline in BMI over five years was associated with a 27%increase in the odds of conversion (OR = 0.73, 95%CI = 0.57–0.94). Conclusion: A decline in BMI over five years, but not bBMI, was strongly associated with conversion to MCI or dementia only for APOE ɛ4 carriers. Interventions and behaviors aimed at maintaining body mass may be important for long term cognitive health in older adults at genetic risk for AD.

Download Full-text

fMRI Activation Changes during Successful Episodic Memory Encoding and Recognition in Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment Relative to Cognitively Healthy Older Adults

Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders ◽

10.1159/000148190 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 26 (2) ◽

pp. 123-137 ◽

Cited By ~ 47

Author(s):

Mehul A. Trivedi ◽

Christopher M. Murphy ◽

Celine Goetz ◽

Raj C. Shah ◽

John D.E. Gabrieli ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

Episodic Memory ◽

Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

Memory Encoding ◽

Healthy Older Adults

Download Full-text

Discriminating accuracy of medial temporal lobe volumetry and fMRI in mild cognitive impairment

Hippocampus ◽

10.1002/hipo.20494 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 19 (2) ◽

pp. 166-175 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Anne M. Jauhiainen ◽

Maija Pihlajamäki ◽

Susanna Tervo ◽

Eini Niskanen ◽

Heikki Tanila ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

Temporal Lobe ◽

Medial Temporal Lobe

Download Full-text

Individuals With Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease Benefit From Audiovisual Speech Cues and Supportive Sentence Context

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2021_jslhr-20-00402 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-10

Author(s):

Alexandre Chauvin ◽

Shari Baum ◽

Natalie A. Phillips

Keyword(s):

Alzheimer’S Disease ◽

Older Adults ◽

Alzheimer's Disease ◽

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

Speech Perception ◽

Sentence Context ◽

Speech Perception In Noise ◽

Healthy Older Adults ◽

Speech Cues

Purpose Speech perception in noise becomes difficult with age but can be facilitated by audiovisual (AV) speech cues and sentence context in healthy older adults. However, individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) may present with deficits in AV integration, potentially limiting the extent to which they can benefit from AV cues. This study investigated the benefit of these cues in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), individuals with AD, and healthy older adult controls. Method This study compared auditory-only and AV speech perception of sentences presented in noise. These sentences had one of two levels of context: high (e.g., “Stir your coffee with a spoon”) and low (e.g., “Bob didn't think about the spoon”). Fourteen older controls ( M age = 72.71 years, SD = 9.39), 13 individuals with MCI ( M age = 79.92 years, SD = 5.52), and nine individuals with probable Alzheimer's-type dementia ( M age = 79.38 years, SD = 3.40) completed the speech perception task and were asked to repeat the terminal word of each sentence. Results All three groups benefited (i.e., identified more terminal words) from AV and sentence context. Individuals with MCI showed a smaller AV benefit compared to controls in low-context conditions, suggesting difficulties with AV integration. Individuals with AD showed a smaller benefit in high-context conditions compared to controls, indicating difficulties with AV integration and context use in AD. Conclusions Individuals with MCI and individuals with AD do benefit from AV speech and semantic context during speech perception in noise (albeit to a lower extent than healthy older adults). This suggests that engaging in face-to-face communication and providing ample context will likely foster more effective communication between patients and caregivers, professionals, and loved ones.

Download Full-text