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IC‐P‐050: EIGHT‐YEAR LONGITUDINAL CHANGE IN ASSOCIATION CORTICAL THICKNESS: PROGRESSION FROM COGNITIVELY HEALTHY TO DEMENTIA
Author(s) -
Willis Sherry L.,
Robinson Paul R.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.713
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1552-5279
pISSN - 1552-5260
DOI - 10.1016/j.jalz.2019.06.4212
Subject(s) - dementia , precuneus , longitudinal study , medicine , psychology , anterior cingulate cortex , cardiology , audiology , neuroscience , cognition , pathology , disease
incompletely understood. Therefore, the target of this study was to investigate neural correlates of subsequent long-term spatial contextual memory in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) due to Alzheimer’s disease in comparison with healthy older participants. Methods: 20 healthy controls (70.6 6 8.0 years) and 24 patients with MCI (MMSE >23) due to Alzheimer’s disease (70.76 6.4 years) took part in the study. Using tasked-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments, brain activity during encoding of object-location association was recorded. In three sessions of free recall (immediate, after 14 minutes, after three days), contextual memory performance was assessed and compared between groups. Results: Increased neural activity of object-location associations that were correctly recalled after three days delay (family-wise-error-corrected p < 0.05) was present in both the control and the MCI group in the left frontal pole, the left inferior frontal gyrus, the anterior division of the left cingulate gyrus, and the paracingulate gyrus. The activation in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was significantly correlated with delayed memory in the MCI group only, which suggests an important role of the ACC in encoding of object-location associations. Conclusions: As the ACC is known to be crucial in cognitive control, an increased top-down control by this structure seems to predict successful encoding in MCI. These results are compatible with the role of the ACC in current concepts of learning and forgetfulness of patients with mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer’s disease and could be used as a basis for the development of new therapies, e.g., non-invasive stimulation, where functional and anatomical understanding is essential.