Functional Neuroanatomy of Successful Paired Associate Learning in Alzheimer's Disease.
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the study was to develop a strategy for functional imaging of neurodegenerative disorders that overcomes confounds associated with differential performance between patient and comparison groups. METHOD: Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine responses to...
| Published in: | American Journal of Psychiatry Vol. 162; no. 11; pp. 2049 - 2061 |
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| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Article |
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American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.
November 2005
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=511272639&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 511272639 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 0002953X API jtl: American Journal of Psychiatry issn: 0002953X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: November 2005 vid: 162 iid: 11 pid: 37323 pub: American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc. artinfo: ui: 511272639 10.1176/appi.ajp.162.11.2049 ppf: 2049 ppct: 12 formats: tig: atl: Functional Neuroanatomy of Successful Paired Associate Learning in Alzheimer's Disease. aug: au: Gould, Rebecca L. Brown, Richard G. Owen, Adrian M. su: Brain function localization Paired associate learning Alzheimer's disease sug: subj: Brain function localization Paired associate learning Alzheimer's disease ab: OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the study was to develop a strategy for functional imaging of neurodegenerative disorders that overcomes confounds associated with differential performance between patient and comparison groups. METHOD: Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine responses to increasing difficulty of visuospatial paired associate learning in 12 patients with mild probable Alzheimer's disease and 12 age-matched healthy comparison subjects. Performance was matched across groups by only examining successful encoding and retrieval attempts. Adjustment for task difficulty was made on an individual basis so that the patients with Alzheimer's disease and the comparison subjects performed at the same relative levels of difficulty. RESULTS: A network of lateral and medial frontoparietal and occipital regions was engaged in all subjects during successful associative learning. As task difficulty increased, blood-oxygen-level-dependent responses increased linearly in occipitoparietal regions during encoding and retrieval. Differential activations in patients with Alzheimer's disease and comparison subjects were small and were found only when an uncorrected statistical threshold was used. CONCLUSIONS: By controlling for confounds of varying task difficulty and subsequent performance, remarkably similar brain activations were identified during successful paired associate learning in patients with Alzheimer's disease and in healthy comparison subjects. The study methods provide a useful model for further applications of functional imaging involving cognitive activation paradigms in the study of neuropsychiatric disorders. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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