Amieva Hélène, Phillips Louise H, Della Sala Sergio, Henry Julie D
Department of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, UK.
Brain. 2004 May;127(Pt 5):949-64. doi: 10.1093/brain/awh045. Epub 2003 Nov 25.
We present a comprehensive review of studies assessing inhibitory functioning in Alzheimer's disease. The objectives of this review are: (i) to establish whether Alzheimer's disease affects all inhibitory mechanisms equally, and (ii) where possible, to assess whether any effects of Alzheimer's disease on inhibition tasks might be caused by other cognitive deficits, such as slowed processing. We review inhibitory mechanisms considered to play a crucial role in various domains of cognition, such as inhibition involved in working memory, selective attention and shifting abilities, and the inhibition of motor and verbal responses. It was found that whilst most inhibitory mechanisms are affected by the disorder, some are relatively preserved, suggesting that inhibitory deficits in Alzheimer's disease may not be the result of a general inhibitory breakdown. In particular, the experimental results reviewed showed that Alzheimer's disease has a strong effect on tasks requiring controlled inhibition processes, such as the Stroop task. However, the presence of the disease appears to have relatively little effect on tasks requiring more automatic inhibition, such as the inhibition of return task. Thus, the distinction between automatic, reflexive inhibitory mechanisms and controlled inhibitory mechanisms may be critical when predicting the integrity of inhibitory mechanisms in Alzheimer's disease. Substantial effects of Alzheimer's disease on tasks such as negative priming, which are not cognitively complex but do require some degree of controlled inhibition, support this hypothesis. A meta-analytic review of seven studies on the Stroop paradigm revealed substantially larger effects of Alzheimer's disease on the inhibition condition relative to the baseline condition, suggesting that these deficits do not simply reflect general slowing.
我们对评估阿尔茨海默病抑制功能的研究进行了全面综述。本综述的目的是：（i）确定阿尔茨海默病是否同等程度地影响所有抑制机制，以及（ii）在可能的情况下，评估阿尔茨海默病对抑制任务的任何影响是否可能由其他认知缺陷引起，例如处理速度减慢。我们综述了被认为在认知的各个领域中起关键作用的抑制机制，例如工作记忆、选择性注意和转换能力中涉及的抑制，以及运动和言语反应的抑制。研究发现，虽然大多数抑制机制都受到该疾病的影响，但有些机制相对保留，这表明阿尔茨海默病中的抑制缺陷可能不是普遍抑制功能崩溃的结果。特别是，所综述的实验结果表明，阿尔茨海默病对需要控制性抑制过程的任务有很强的影响，例如斯特鲁普任务。然而，该疾病的存在似乎对需要更多自动抑制的任务影响相对较小，例如返回抑制任务。因此，在预测阿尔茨海默病中抑制机制的完整性时，自动、反射性抑制机制和控制性抑制机制之间的区别可能至关重要。阿尔茨海默病对诸如负启动等任务有显著影响，这些任务在认知上并不复杂，但确实需要一定程度的控制性抑制，这支持了这一假设。对七项关于斯特鲁普范式的研究进行的荟萃分析综述显示，相对于基线条件，阿尔茨海默病对抑制条件的影响要大得多，这表明这些缺陷不仅仅反映了普遍的速度减慢。
