Grundman Michael, Jack Clifford R, Petersen Ronald C, Kim Hyun T, Taylor Curtis, Datvian Marina, Weiner Myron F, DeCarli Charles, DeKosky Steven T, van Dyck Christopher, Darvesh Sultan, Yaffe Kristine, Kaye Jeffrey, Ferris Steven H, Thomas Ronald G, Thal Leon J
Department of Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla 92093-0949, USA.
J Mol Neurosci. 2003;20(3):241-8. doi: 10.1385/jmn:20:3:241.
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) appears to be a transitional stage in the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Patients with MCI show impaired memory performance and hippocampal atrophy relative to normal elderly controls. Prior studies indicate that the degree of hippocampal atrophy in MCI patients predicts conversion to AD. In contrast to patients with MCI who have deficits primarily in memory, AD patients have clinically evident impairments in both memory and nonmemory cognitive domains. One explanation for the observation that a smaller hippocampal volume predicts conversion to AD might be that hippocampal atrophy is associated with early impairment in nonmemory cognitive areas as well as memory. A link between hippocampal volume and nonmemory function could occur if hippocampal atrophy was correlated with AD pathology in other brain regions. We therefore sought to determine the relationship of hippocampal volume with performance on memory and nonmemory tasks in patients with MCI. Although we found a significant correlation between hippocampal volume and memory performance, we did not find a significant correlation between hippocampal volume and nonmemory performance. We conclude that the relationship between hippocampal volume and risk of AD is likely tied to reduced memory performance and not associated with impairment in nonmemory cognitive domains.
轻度认知障碍（MCI）似乎是阿尔茨海默病（AD）发展过程中的一个过渡阶段。与正常老年对照组相比，MCI患者表现出记忆功能受损和海马萎缩。先前的研究表明，MCI患者海马萎缩的程度可预测其向AD的转化。与主要存在记忆缺陷的MCI患者不同，AD患者在记忆和非记忆认知领域均有临床上明显的损害。海马体积较小可预测向AD转化这一观察结果的一种解释可能是，海马萎缩与非记忆认知区域以及记忆的早期损害有关。如果海马萎缩与其他脑区的AD病理相关，那么海马体积与非记忆功能之间可能存在联系。因此，我们试图确定MCI患者海马体积与记忆和非记忆任务表现之间的关系。虽然我们发现海马体积与记忆表现之间存在显著相关性，但未发现海马体积与非记忆表现之间存在显著相关性。我们得出结论，海马体积与AD风险之间的关系可能与记忆表现降低有关，而与非记忆认知领域的损害无关。
