scholarly journals The Eyes Are More Eloquent Than Words: Anticipatory Looking as an Index of Event Memory in Alzheimer's Disease

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuki Hanazuka ◽  
Akinori Futamura ◽  
Satoshi Hirata ◽  
Akira Midorikawa ◽  
Kenjiro Ono ◽  
...  

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a disorder in which individuals experience a difficulty in maintaining event memory for when, where, who, and what. However, verbal deficiency, one of the other symptoms of AD, may prevent a precise diagnosis of event memory because existing tests are based on verbal instructions by the tester and verbal response from patient. Therefore, non-verbal methods are essential to evaluate event memory in AD. The present study, using eye tracking, investigated whether AD patients deployed anticipatory looking to target acts related to future events based on previous experience when an identical video was presented to them twice. The results revealed the presence of anticipatory looking, although AD patients were unable to verbally report the content of the video. Our results illustrate that AD patients have a one-time event memory better than previously thought.

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 674-681 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sietske A.M. Sikkes ◽  
Dirk L. Knol ◽  
Mark T. van den Berg ◽  
Elly S.M. de Lange-de Klerk ◽  
Philip Scheltens ◽  
...  

AbstractA decline in everyday cognitive functioning is important for diagnosing dementia. Informant questionnaires, such as the informant questionnaire on cognitive decline in the elderly (IQCODE), are used to measure this. Previously, conflicting results on the IQCODEs ability to discriminate between Alzheimer's disease (AD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and cognitively healthy elderly were found. We aim to investigate whether specific groups of items are more useful than others in discriminating between these patient groups. Informants of 180 AD, 59 MCI, and 89 patients with subjective memory complaints (SMC) completed the IQCODE. To investigate the grouping of questionnaire items, we used a two-dimensional graded response model (GRM).The association between IQCODE, age, gender, education, and diagnosis was modeled using structural equation modeling. The GRM with two groups of items fitted better than the unidimensional model. However, the high correlation between the dimensions (r=.90) suggested unidimensionality. The structural model showed that the IQCODE was able to differentiate between all patient groups. The IQCODE can be considered as unidimensional and as a useful addition to diagnostic screening in a memory clinic setting, as it was able to distinguish between AD, MCI, and SMC and was not influenced by gender or education. (JINS, 2011, 17, 674–681)


Author(s):  
Briana S. Last ◽  
Batool Rizvi ◽  
Adam M. Brickman

Structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful tool to visualize and quantitate morphological and pathological features of the aging brain. Most work that has used structural MRI to study Alzheimer’s disease (AD) focused on the spatial distribution of atrophic changes associated with disease. These studies consistently show focal atrophy beginning in medial temporal lobes in early and presymptomatic stages of AD before spreading globally throughout the cortical mantle. Normal cognitive aging—aging in the absence of major neurodegenerative disease—on the other hand follows and anterior-to-posterior gradient of atrophic change. In addition to atrophic changes, conventional structural MRI can be used to appreciate markers of small and large vessel cerebrovascular disease, including white matter hyperintensities (WMHs), cerebral microbleeds, and infarction. Studies that have examined cerebrovascular changes associated with AD also show a consistent relationship with risk and severity of clinical AD, particularly with regard to lobar microbleeds and posterior WMH. It is unclear whether cerebrovascular changes play an independent role in the clinical expression of AD or whether it is more mechanistically related, reflecting a core feature of the disease. This chapter reviews recent work on regional atrophy in AD and normal aging, as well as work on small and large cerebrovascular disease in AD.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shorena Janelidze ◽  
Erik Stomrud ◽  
Ruben Smith ◽  
Sebastian Palmqvist ◽  
Niklas Mattsson ◽  
...  

AbstractCerebrospinal fluid (CSF) p-tau181 (tau phosphorylated at threonine 181) is an established biomarker of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), reflecting abnormal tau metabolism in the brain. Here we investigate the performance of CSF p-tau217 as a biomarker of AD in comparison to p-tau181. In the Swedish BioFINDER cohort (n = 194), p-tau217 shows stronger correlations with the tau positron emission tomography (PET) tracer [18F]flortaucipir, and more accurately identifies individuals with abnormally increased [18F]flortaucipir retention. Furthermore, longitudinal increases in p-tau217 are higher compared to p-tau181 and better correlate with [18F]flortaucipir uptake. P-tau217 correlates better than p-tau181 with CSF and PET measures of neocortical amyloid-β burden and more accurately distinguishes AD dementia from non-AD neurodegenerative disorders. Higher correlations between p-tau217 and [18F]flortaucipir are corroborated in an independent EXPEDITION3 trial cohort (n = 32). The main results are validated using a different p-tau217 immunoassay. These findings suggest that p-tau217 might be more useful than p-tau181 in the diagnostic work up of AD.


2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (12) ◽  
pp. 1142-1150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Gonzalez-Nosti ◽  
Fernando Cuetos ◽  
Carmen Martinez

Background: The expressive difficulties in patients with Alzheimer’s dementia have been extensively studied, mainly in oral language. However, the deterioration of their writing processes has received much less attention. Objective: The present study aims to examine the decline of the performance of patients with Alzheimer’s disease in both oral and written picture-naming tasks. Method: Sixty-four participants (half with Alzheimer’s disease and half healthy elderly) were compared in the oral and written versions of a picture-naming task. Follow-up lasted two and a half years and patients were evaluated every six months. Results: Cross-sectional data indicate that the controls performed better than the patients, and both groups showed a different pattern of errors. In terms of longitudinal data, the results show a similar pattern of deterioration in both tasks. In terms of errors, lexical-semantics were the most numerous at the beginning and their number remained constant throughout all evaluations. In the case of non-responses, there was a significant increase in the last session, both in oral and written naming. Conclusion: These results replicate those found in previous studies and highlight the utility of the naming task to detect minimal changes in the evolution of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.


Author(s):  
Xue-Song Wang ◽  
Jia-Jia Li ◽  
Yue-Shen Wang ◽  
Chao-Chao Yu ◽  
Chuan He ◽  
...  

Background: Acupuncture and acupuncture-related therapies are effective for Alzheimer's disease (AD), therefore, we aimed to compare and rank the interventions that mainly focus on acupuncture-related therapies in the treatment of patients with mild to moderate AD. Methods: We used network meta-analysis to evaluate the direct and indirect evidence shown in randomized controlled trials of AD. The data were analyzed using RavMan manager, Stata, and WinBUGS software after two researchers independently screened the literature, extracted the data, and assessed the risk of bias in the included studies. Results: We analyzed a total of 36 eligible studies, including 2712 patients, involving 14 types of acupuncture-related therapies and comprehensive therapies. For Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), acupuncture (ACU) combined with cognitive and memory training (Training) was more effective than ACU, ACU+Chinese herb (CH), ACU+Donepezil (DON), CH, DON, DON+Nimodipine (NIM), Music therapy (Music), NIM, Placebo, and Training (P<0.05), while ACU+CH was batter than CH (P<0.05), and ACU+DON+NIM was better than DON+NIM (P<0.05). For Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive section (ADAS-cog), ACU was more effective than DON and placebo (P<0.05). For Activities of Daily Living (ADL), ACU+DON was better than CH, DON, NIM, and Placebo (P<0.05). For the clinical effectiveness rate, ACU, ACU+CH, ACU+CH+DON, ACU+CH+DON+NIM, ACU+DON, CH, NIM were all more effective than DON+NIM (P<0.05), while ACU and ACU+CH were better than DON (P<0.05). The comprehensive ranking results show that ACU+training and ACU have the highest ranking probability. Conclusion: ACU+Training and ACU may be the best therapies to improve the cognitive function of patients with mild to moderate AD, while the combination of acupuncture-related therapies and other therapies has a higher overall benefit.  


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfie R. Wearn ◽  
Esther Saunders-Jennings ◽  
Volkan Nurdal ◽  
Emma Hadley ◽  
Michael J. Knight ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Here, we address a pivotal factor in Alzheimer’s prevention—identifying those at risk early, when dementia can still be avoided. Recent research highlights an accelerated forgetting phenotype as a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. We hypothesized that delayed recall over 4 weeks would predict cognitive decline over 1 year better than 30-min delayed recall, the current gold standard for detecting episodic memory problems which could be an early clinical manifestation of incipient Alzheimer’s disease. We also expected hippocampal subfield volumes to improve predictive accuracy. Methods Forty-six cognitively healthy older people (mean age 70.7 ± 7.97, 21/46 female), recruited from databases such as Join Dementia Research, or a local database of volunteers, performed 3 memory tasks on which delayed recall was tested after 30 min and 4 weeks, as well as Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination III (ACE-III) and CANTAB Paired Associates Learning. Medial temporal lobe subregion volumes were automatically measured using high-resolution 3T MRI. The ACE-III was repeated after 12 months to assess the change in cognitive ability. We used univariate linear regressions and ROC curves to assess the ability of tests of delayed recall to predict cognitive decline on ACE-III over the 12 months. Results Fifteen of the 46 participants declined over the year (≥ 3 points lost on ACE-III). Four-week verbal memory predicted cognitive decline in healthy older people better than clinical gold standard memory tests and hippocampal MRI. The best single-test predictor of cognitive decline was the 4-week delayed recall on the world list (R2 = .123, p = .018, β = .418). Combined with hippocampal subfield volumetry, 4-week verbal recall identifies those at risk of cognitive decline with 93% sensitivity and 86% specificity (AUC = .918, p < .0001). Conclusions We show that a test of accelerated long-term forgetting over 4 weeks can predict cognitive decline in healthy older people where traditional tests of delayed recall cannot. Accelerated long-term forgetting is a sensitive, easy-to-test predictor of cognitive decline in healthy older people. Used alone or with hippocampal MRI, accelerated forgetting probes functionally relevant Alzheimer’s-related change. Accelerated forgetting will identify early-stage impairment, helping to target more invasive and expensive molecular biomarker testing.


2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 313-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ophélie Glachet ◽  
Mohamad El Haj

Abstract Several studies have demonstrated that Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is associated not only with difficulty in remembering past events but also with a compromised ability to imagine future ones. Recent empirical research has also demonstrated that odor is an effective cue to alleviate difficulty in remembering past events in AD. We investigated whether odor exposure would help AD patients to imagine future events. To this end, we invited AD patients and control participants to evoke past and future events after odor exposure or without odor. Analysis showed that AD patients and control participants produced more specific and more emotional past and future events after odor exposure than without odor. However, odor exposure did not improve the retrieval time for future thinking in AD participants. This study is the first to demonstrate positive effects of odor exposure on the ability of AD patients to project themselves into the future.


2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 1240-1250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulio E. Lancioni ◽  
Nirbhay N. Singh ◽  
Mark F. O’Reilly ◽  
Jeff Sigafoos ◽  
Emanuela Tatulli ◽  
...  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document