Search

Background: Recently, subjective cognitive decline (SCD) was proposed as an early risk factor for future Alzheimer's disease (AD). Objective: In this study, we investigated whether accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF), assessed with extended testing intervals than those adopted in clinical practice, might be a cognitive feature of SCD. Using an explorative MRI analysis of the SCD sample, we attempted to investigate the areas most likely involved in the ALF pattern. Methods: We recruited 31 individuals with SCD from our memory clinic and subdivided them based on their rate of memory complaints into mild SCDs (n = 18) and severe SCDs (n = 13). A long-term forgetting procedure, involving the recall of verbal and visuo-spatial material at four testing delays (i.e., immediate, 30 min, 24 h, and 7 days post-encoding) was used to compare the two sub-groups of SCDs with a healthy control group (HC; n = 16). Results: No significant between-group difference was found on the standard neuropsychological tests, nor in the immediate and 30 min recall of the experimental procedure. By contrast, on the verbal test severe SCDs forgot significantly more than HCs in the prolonged intervals (i.e., 24 h and 7 days), with the greatest decline between 30 min and 24 h. Finally, in the whole SCD sample, we found significant associations between functional connectivity values within some cortical networks involved in memory (default mode network, salience network, and fronto-parietal network) and verbal long-term measures. Conclusions: Our preliminary findings suggest that long-term forgetting procedures could be a sensitive neuropsychological tool for detecting memory concerns in SCDs, contributing to early AD detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here we aimed to investigate the rate of forgetting of the familiarity and recollection components of recognition in patients at the onset of medial temporal lobe (MTL) pathology and destined to convert to Alzheimer's disease (AD). For this purpose, we conducted a longitudinal study of 13 patients who were diagnosed with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (a-MCI) at the first assessment and followed-up for 3 years. During this time, five patients converted to AD and eight remained in a stable condition of cognitive impairment. A group of 15 healthy subjects were enrolled as the control group (HC). In order to separately quantify the contribution of recollection and familiarity to recognition memory performance, the experimental sample was submitted to a modified version of Huppert and Piercy's procedure that included a Remember/Know paradigm. Data demonstrated that both stable and converter a-MCI patients forgot memory traces relative to the familiarity components of recognition at the same rate as HC. Conversely, converter a-MCI patients showed accelerated long-term forgetting specifically for the recollection component of recognition compared to stable a-MCI and HC. This is the first empirical demonstration that familiarity and recollection components of declarative memory are subject to different rates of forgetting in a-MCI patients as a function of their longitudinal clinical outcome. Our finding of accelerated long-term forgetting of the recollection component of recognition disclosed by converter a-MCI patients suggests that atrophy in the MTL not only interferes with the storage aspects but also disrupts the consolidation of memory traces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Currently, the impact of drug therapies on neurodegenerative conditions is limited. Therefore, there is a strong clinical interest in nonpharmacological interventions aimed at preserving functionality, delaying disease progression, reducing disability, and improving quality of life for both patients and their caregivers. This longitudinal multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) applies three innovative cognitive telerehabilitation (TR) methods to evaluate their impact on brain functional connectivity reconfigurations and on the overall level of cognitive and everyday functions. Methods: We will include 110 participants with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Fifty-five participants will be randomly assigned to the intervention group who will receive cognitive TR via three approaches, namely: (a) Network-based Cognitive Training (NBCT), (b) Home-based Cognitive Rehabilitation (HomeCoRe), or (c) Semantic Memory Rehabilitation Training (SMRT). The control group (n  =  55) will receive an unstructured home-based cognitive stimulation. The rehabilitative program will last either 4 (NBTC) or 6  weeks (HomeCoRe and SMRT), and the control condition will be adapted to each TR intervention. The effects of TR will be tested in terms of Δ connectivity change, obtained from high-density electroencephalogram (HD-EEG) or functional magnetic resonance imaging at rest (rs-fMRI), acquired before (T0) and after (T1) the intervention. All participants will undergo a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment at four timepoints: baseline (T0), within 2  weeks (T1), and after 6 (T2) and 12  months (T3) from the end of TR. Discussion: The results of this RCT will identify a potential association between improvement in performance induced by individual cognitive TR approaches and modulation of resting-state brain connectivity. The knowledge gained with this study might foster the development of novel TR approaches underpinned by established neural mechanisms to be validated and implemented in clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New technologies show promise in the construction of self-administered home-based programs for targeting language impairments, in overcoming mobility problems and in providing access to care in a cost-effective and time-saving way. In the present study, we investigated the feasibility and effectiveness of a self-administered home-based program for treating word-finding difficulties in persons with Alzheimer's disease. Ten participants practised word repetition training on a smart tablet for two weeks. Two slightly different training conditions were adopted; they varied as to the order of the presentation of the word to be repeated and the corresponding picture. Both training modalities proved effective in improving naming accuracy on the treated items. There were hints of greater treatment efficacy when the picture was presented before the word to be repeated. Furthermore, when the trial started with the word, the degree of general cognitive impairment and lexical semantic deficits correlated with the effect size of the training benefit. By contrast, the picture first training did not have this modulatory effect. Finally, no generalisation to untreated items was observed in naming accuracy, but was detectable with a more sensitive stem completion task. Our study provides compelling evidence in favour of the feasibility and efficacy of a homebased program for remediating anomia in AD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reduced verbal long-term memory capacities often reported in dyslexics are generally interpreted as a consequence of their deficit in phonological coding. The present study was aimed at evaluating whether the learning deficit exhibited by dyslexics was restricted only to the verbal component of the long-term memory abilities or also involved visual-object and visual-spatial domain. A further goal of the present study was to investigate the predictive value of non-verbal long-term memory abilities with respect to word and non-word reading in dyslexic children. In accordance with these aims, performances of 60 dyslexic children were compared with that of 65 age-matched normal readers on verbal, visual-spatial and visual-object task. Results documented a generalized impairment of episodic long-term memory capacities in dyslexic children and the results did not vary as a function of children's age. Furthermore, in addition to verbal measures, also individual differences in non-verbal long-term memory tasks turn out to be good predictors of reading difficulties in dyslexics. Our findings indicate that the long-term memory deficit in dyslexia is not limited to the dysfunction of phonological components but also involves visual-object and visual-spatial aspect, thus suggesting that dyslexia is associated to multiple cognitive deficits. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)