scholarly journals The Contributions of Active Spanish-English Bilingualism to Cognitive Reserve among Older Hispanic Adults Living in California

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (7) ◽  
pp. 1235-1235 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Arce Rentería ◽  
K Casalletto ◽  
S Tom ◽  
J Pa ◽  
A Harrati ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Cognitive Functioning ◽  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Cortical Thickness ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Sociocultural Factors ◽  
Hispanic Adults ◽  
Aging Study ◽  
Older Hispanic Adults

Abstract Objective Bilinguals may be able to retain similar levels of cognitive functioning given age and/or Alzheimer’s Disease-related neurodegeneration, compared to monolinguals. Many studies have yielded equivocal findings that may be explained by within-group differences among bilinguals, such as frequency of language use. The current study aimed to clarify the role of frequency of bilingual language use (i.e., active versus passive) in the association of brain structure and memory. We hypothesized that active bilinguals would demonstrate better memory performance compared to passive bilinguals and monolinguals, and that active bilingualism would buffer the effects of temporal lobe integrity on memory. Participants and Method In a longitudinal aging study, 217 older Hispanic adults (Age M = 74 years, SD = 6; 70% women) underwent neuropsychological evaluation and 1.5T MR imaging. Bilingualism was determined by self-reported use of English and Spanish. Active bilinguals reported using both languages daily. Multiple regression tested main effects and interactions of bilingualism and entorhinal cortical thickness on semantic and episodic memory, adjusted for age, sex/gender, and education. Results Bilingualism was associated with better semantic memory(F[2,209] = 6.25, p = .002) but not with episodic memory(F[2,209)] = 0.34, p = .71). There was a significant bilingualism X entorhinal cortical thickness interaction on semantic memory (β = -.26, p = .02), indicating that active bilinguals were better able to maintain cognitive functioning with lower cortical thickness, compared to passive bilinguals and monolinguals. Conclusions Active bilingualism may protect semantic memory against cortical thinning of the entorhinal cortex. Future studies will explore whether this relationship remains after accounting for additional environmental and sociocultural factors (e.g., immigrant status) that influence the ability or opportunity to become bilingual, and whether active bilingualism affects cognitive trajectory in late life.

scholarly journals Egocentric Navigation Abilities Predict Episodic Memory Performance

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giorgia Committeri ◽  
Agustina Fragueiro ◽  
Maria Maddalena Campanile ◽  
Marco Lagatta ◽  
Ford Burles ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Path Integration ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Declarative Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Egocentric Navigation

The medial temporal lobe supports both navigation and declarative memory. On this basis, a theory of phylogenetic continuity has been proposed according to which episodic and semantic memories have evolved from egocentric (e.g., path integration) and allocentric (e.g., map-based) navigation in the physical world, respectively. Here, we explored the behavioral significance of this neurophysiological model by investigating the relationship between the performance of healthy individuals on a path integration and an episodic memory task. We investigated the path integration performance through a proprioceptive Triangle Completion Task and assessed episodic memory through a picture recognition task. We evaluated the specificity of the association between performance in these two tasks by including in the study design a verbal semantic memory task. We also controlled for the effect of attention and working memory and tested the robustness of the results by including alternative versions of the path integration and semantic memory tasks. We found a significant positive correlation between the performance on the path integration the episodic, but not semantic, memory tasks. This pattern of correlation was not explained by general cognitive abilities and persisted also when considering a visual path integration task and a non-verbal semantic memory task. Importantly, a cross-validation analysis showed that participants' egocentric navigation abilities reliably predicted episodic memory performance. Altogether, our findings support the hypothesis of a phylogenetic continuity between egocentric navigation and episodic memory and pave the way for future research on the potential causal role of egocentric navigation on multiple forms of episodic memory.

Impact of Sociocultural Factors on Depression in Older Hispanic Adults

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura M. Reid ◽  
Arpita Ghosh ◽  
Aditi Sinha ◽  
Brian Littleton ◽  
Kelly Duron
Keyword(s):  
Sociocultural Factors ◽  
Hispanic Adults ◽  
Older Hispanic Adults

Structural Neural Correlates of Memory Performance in Schizoprhenia as Revealed by Cortical Thickness

2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (S1) ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
K. Sergerie ◽  
A.C. Evans ◽  
C. Lepage ◽  
M. Lepage
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Cortical Thickness ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Memory Deficits ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Parahippocampal Gyrus ◽  
Brain Abnormalities ◽  
The Right

In addition to the positive and negative symptoms, schizophrenia is associated with a variety of cognitive impairments, and in particular with episodic memory deficits. Functional neuroimaging studies have begun exploring the potential neural correlates of memory deficits but there are few reports of structural brain abnormalities underlying memory impairment in schizophrenia. We investigated the potential association between morphological brain abnormalities as revealed by cortical thickness measures and episodic memory performance on a face recognition task. Differences in regional cortical thickness between 27 patients with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia and 28 control matched subjects were investigated using MRI T1 images and computer image analysis (CIVET pipeline; Lerch and Evans, 2005). Cortical thickness was estimated as the shortest distance between the pial surface of the cerebral cortex and the white-matter/gray-matter interface surface at numerous points (40 962 vertices) across the cortical mantle. Consistent with previous studies, a group comparison revealed thinner cortex in the patient group relative to controls in the right prefrontal cortex and parahippocampal gyrus. Interestingly, a significant positive correlation between memory performance and cortical thickness of the anterior cingulate, bilaterally as well as the right parahippocampal gyrus was noted in the schizophrenia group. That is, the thinner the cortex in those regions, the more impaired the patients were in terms of memory performance as compared to healthy participants.

Précis of Elements of episodic memory

1984 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Endel Tulving
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Processing System ◽  
Complete Characterization ◽  
Basic Unit ◽  
Recollective Experience ◽  
Retrieval Cues ◽  
Joint Influence ◽  
General Abstract

AbstractElements of episodic memory (Tulving 1983b) consists of three parts. Part I argues for the distinction between episodic and semantic memory as functionally separate albeit closely interacting systems. It begins with a review of the 1972 essay on the topic (Tulving 1972) and its shortcomings, presents a somewhat more complete characterization of the two forms of memory than the one that was possible in 1972, and proceeds to discuss empirical and theoretical reasons for a tentative acceptance of the functional distinction between the two systems and its possible extensions. Part II describes a framework for the study of episodic memory, dubbed General Abstract Processing System (GAPS). The basic unit in such study is an act of remembering. It begins with the witnessing of an event and ends with recollective experience of the event, with related memory performance, or both. The framework specifies a number of components (elements) of the act of remembering and their interrelations, classified under two broad categories of encoding and retrieval. Part III discusses experimental research under the label of “synergistic ecphory.” Ecphory is one of the central elements of retrieval; “synergistic” refers to the joint influence that the stored episodic information and the cognitively present retrieval information exert on the construction of the product of ecphory, the so-called ecphoric information. The concept of encoding specificity and the phenomenon of recognition failure of recallable words figure prominently in Part III. The final chapter of the book describes a model, named the synergistic ecphory model of retrieval, that relates qualitative characteristics of recollective experience and quantitative measures of memory performance in recall and recognition to the conjunction of episodic-memory traces and semantic-memory retrieval cues.

Impact of Comorbid Depression on Serial Position Effects in Alzheimer’s Disease

GeroPsych ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 161-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nienke A. Hofrichter ◽  
Sandra Dick ◽  
Thomas G. Riemer ◽  
Carsten Schleussner ◽  
Monique Goerke ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Serial Position ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Memory Function ◽  
Word List ◽  
Position Effects ◽  
Serial Position Effects ◽  
List Memory

Hippocampal dysfunction and deficits in episodic memory have been reported for both Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and major depressive disorder (MDD). Primacy performance has been associated with hippocampus-dependent episodic memory, while recency may reflect working memory performance. In this study, serial position profiles were examined in a total of 73 patients with MDD, AD, both AD and MDD, and healthy controls (HC) by means of CERAD-NP word list memory. Primacy performance was most impaired in AD with comorbid MDD, followed by AD, MDD, and HC. Recency performance, on the other hand, was comparable across groups. These findings indicate that primacy in AD is impaired in the presence of comorbid MDD, suggesting additive performance decrements in this specific episodic memory function.

Knowledge is power: prior knowledge aids memory formation for both congruent and incongruent events, but in different ways.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Greve ◽  
Elisa Cooper ◽  
Roni Tibon ◽  
Richard Henson
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Memory Formation ◽  
Memory Test ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
Apparent Paradox ◽  
Power Prior

Events that conform to our expectations, i.e, are congruent with our world knowledge or schemas, are better remembered than unrelated events. Yet events that conflict with schemas can also be remembered better. We examined this apparent paradox in four experiments, in which schemas were established by training ordinal relationships between randomly-paired objects, while episodic memory was tested for the number of objects on each trial. Better memory was found for both congruent and incongruent trials, relative to unrelated trials, producing memory performance that was a “U-shaped” function of congruency. Furthermore, the incongruency advantage, but not congruency advantage, emerged even if the information probed by the memory test was irrelevant to the schema, while the congruency advantage, but not incongruency advantage, also emerged after initial encoding. Schemas therefore augment episodic memory in multiple ways, depending on the match between novel and existing information.

Inflammatory Markers May Inform the Effects of Electroconvulsive Therapy on Cognition in Patients with Depression

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Jan-Baptist Belge ◽  
Linda Van Diermen ◽  
Bernard Sabbe ◽  
Manuel Morrens ◽  
Violette Coppens ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Cognitive Functioning ◽  
Electroconvulsive Therapy ◽  
Inflammatory Markers ◽  
Verbal Learning ◽  
Potential Biomarker ◽  
Tnf Α ◽  
Autobiographic Memory ◽  
Learning Test ◽  
Verbal Episodic Memory

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> The neurobiological mechanisms underlying the acute cognitive effects of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) remain poorly understood. Prior research has shown that proinflammatory cytokines such as IL-6, TNF-α, IL1-β, and IL-10 may interfere with cognitive functioning. Interestingly, immunomodulation is one of the proposed modes of action of ECT. This study investigates whether changes of peripheral levels of IL-6, TNF-α, IL1-β, and IL-10 are related to changes in cognitive functioning following ECT. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> In the week before and 1 week after an acute course of ECT, 62 patients suffering from depression underwent a neuropsychological evaluation to assess their processing speed using the Symbol Digit Substitution Test (SDST), verbal episodic memory using the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised (HVLT-R), and their retrospective autobiographic memory using the Autobiographical Memory Interview (AMI) with the peripheral inflammatory markers being measured at the same 2 time points. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Patients improved drastically following ECT, while their main performance on both the HVLT-R and AMI declined and their SDST scores remained stable. The levels of IL-6 and IL1-β had both decreased, where the decrease in IL-6 was related to the decrease in HVLT-R scores. Higher baseline IL-10 levels were associated with a more limited decrease of the HVLT-R scores. <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> Our findings tentatively suggest that the effects of ECT on verbal episodic memory may be related to the treatment’s immunomodulatory properties, most notably due to decreased IL-6 levels. Moreover, baseline IL-10 appears to be a potential biomarker to predict the effects of ECT on verbal episodic memory. Whilst compelling, the results of this study should be interpreted with caution as, due to its exploratory nature, no correction for multiple comparisons was made. Further, a replication in larger cohorts is warranted.

scholarly journals Do Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Cardiovascular Disease Explain Sex Differences in Cognitive Functioning in Old Age?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Maria van Zutphen ◽  
Judith Johanna Maria Rijnhart ◽  
Didericke Rhebergen ◽  
Majon Muller ◽  
Martijn Huisman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Cardiovascular Disease ◽  
Sex Differences ◽  
Information Processing ◽  
Cardiovascular Risk ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Cognitive Functioning ◽  
Cardiovascular Risk Factors ◽  
Processing Speed ◽  
Information Processing Speed

Background: Sex differences in cognitive functioning in old age are known to exist yet are still poorly understood. Objective: This study examines to what extent differences in cardiovascular risk factors and cardiovascular disease between men and women explain sex differences in cognitive functioning. Methods: Data from 2,724 older adults from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam were used. Information processing speed and episodic memory, measured three times during six years of follow-up, served as outcomes. The mediating role of cardiovascular risk factors and cardiovascular disease was examined in single and multiple mediator models. Determinant-mediator effects were estimated using linear or logistic regression, and determinant-outcome and mediator-outcome effects were estimated using linear mixed models. Indirect effects were estimated using the product-of-coefficients estimator. Results: Women scored 1.58 points higher on information processing speed and 1.53 points higher on episodic memory. Several cardiovascular risk factors had small mediating effects. The sex difference in information processing speed was mediated by smoking, depressive symptoms, obesity, and systolic blood pressure. The sex difference in episodic memory was mediated by smoking, physical activity, and depressive symptoms. Effects of smoking, LDL cholesterol, and diabetes mellitus on information processing speed differed between men and women. Conclusion: Differences in cardiovascular risk factors between women and men partially explained why women had better cognitive functioning. A healthy cardiovascular lifestyle seems beneficial for cognition and sex-specific strategies may be important to preserve cognitive functioning at older age.

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