TY - JOUR
T1 - Visual short-term memory impairments in presymptomatic familial Alzheimer's disease
T2 - A longitudinal observational study
AU - Pavisic, Ivanna M.
AU - Nicholas, Jennifer M.
AU - Pertzov, Yoni
AU - O'Connor, Antoinette
AU - Liang, Yuying
AU - Collins, Jessica D.
AU - Lu, Kirsty
AU - Weston, Philip S.J.
AU - Ryan, Natalie S.
AU - Husain, Masud
AU - Fox, Nick C.
AU - Crutch, Sebastian J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s)
PY - 2021/11/12
Y1 - 2021/11/12
N2 - Visual short-term memory (VSTM) deficits including VSTM binding have been associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) from preclinical to dementia stages, cross-sectionally. Yet, longitudinal investigations are lacking. The objective of this study was to evaluate VSTM function longitudinally and in relation to expected symptom onset in a cohort of familial Alzheimer's disease. Ninety-nine individuals (23 presymptomatic; 9 symptomatic and 67 controls) were included in an extension cross-sectional study and a sub-sample of 48 (23 presymptomatic carriers, 6 symptomatic and 19 controls), attending two to five visits with a median interval of 1.3 years, included in the longitudinal study. Participants completed the “What was where?” relational binding task (which measures memory for object identification, localisation and object-location binding under different conditions of memory load and delay), neuropsychology assessments and genetic testing. Compared to controls, presymptomatic carriers within 8.5 years of estimated symptom onset showed a faster rate of decline in localisation performance in long-delay conditions (4s) and in traditional neuropsychology measures of verbal episodic memory. This study represents the first longitudinal VSTM investigation and shows that changes in memory resolution may be sensitive to tracking cognitive decline in preclinical AD at least as early as changes in the more traditional verbal episodic memory tasks.
AB - Visual short-term memory (VSTM) deficits including VSTM binding have been associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) from preclinical to dementia stages, cross-sectionally. Yet, longitudinal investigations are lacking. The objective of this study was to evaluate VSTM function longitudinally and in relation to expected symptom onset in a cohort of familial Alzheimer's disease. Ninety-nine individuals (23 presymptomatic; 9 symptomatic and 67 controls) were included in an extension cross-sectional study and a sub-sample of 48 (23 presymptomatic carriers, 6 symptomatic and 19 controls), attending two to five visits with a median interval of 1.3 years, included in the longitudinal study. Participants completed the “What was where?” relational binding task (which measures memory for object identification, localisation and object-location binding under different conditions of memory load and delay), neuropsychology assessments and genetic testing. Compared to controls, presymptomatic carriers within 8.5 years of estimated symptom onset showed a faster rate of decline in localisation performance in long-delay conditions (4s) and in traditional neuropsychology measures of verbal episodic memory. This study represents the first longitudinal VSTM investigation and shows that changes in memory resolution may be sensitive to tracking cognitive decline in preclinical AD at least as early as changes in the more traditional verbal episodic memory tasks.
KW - Alzheimer's disease
KW - Estimated symptom onset
KW - Familial Alzheimer's disease
KW - Preclinical Alzheimer's disease
KW - Visual short-term memory
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85116041771&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.108028
DO - 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.108028
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C2 - 34560142
AN - SCOPUS:85116041771
SN - 0028-3932
VL - 162
JO - Neuropsychologia
JF - Neuropsychologia
M1 - 108028
ER -