Patterns of cortical activity and memory performance in Alzheimer's disease.
BACKGROUND: Declarative memory changes are the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, although their functional neuroanatomy is not restricted to a single structure. Factor analysis provides statistical methods for evaluating patterns of cerebral changes in regional glucose uptake. METHODS: Thirty-three Alzheimer's patients and 33 age- and gender-matched control subjects were studied with magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography with [(18)F] deoxyglucose. During the tracer-uptake period, subjects performed a serial verbal learning task. Cortical activity was measured in 32 regions of interest, four in each lobe on both hemispheres. RESULTS: Factor analysis with varimax rotation identified seven factors explaining 80% of the variance ("parietal cortex," "occipital cortex," "right temporo-prefrontal areas," "frontal cortex," "motor strip," "left temporal cortex," and "posterior temporal cortex"). Relative to control subjects, Alzheimer's patients showed significantly reduced values on the factors occipital cortex, right temporo-prefrontal areas, frontal cortex, and left temporal cortex. The factor temporo-prefrontal areas showed large differences between patients with good and poor performance, but little difference when control subjects were similarly divided. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that Alzheimer's disease is characterized by altered patterns of cortical activity, rather than deficits in a single location, and emphasize the importance of right temporo-prefrontal circuitry for understanding memory deficits.[1]References
- Patterns of cortical activity and memory performance in Alzheimer's disease. Schröder, J., Buchsbaum, M.S., Shihabuddin, L., Tang, C., Wei, T.C., Spiegel-Cohen, J., Hazlett, E.A., Abel, L., Luu-Hsia, C., Ciaravolo, T.M., Marin, D., Davis, K.L. Biol. Psychiatry (2001) [Pubmed]
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