Duchek Janet M, Balota David A, Cortese Michael
Department of Psychology, Washington University, St Louis, MO 63130, USA.
Neuropsychology. 2006 Nov;20(6):633-44. doi: 10.1037/0894-4105.20.6.633.
The present study examined whether prospective memory performance discriminates healthy aging from very mild dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) and individuals at risk for DAT because of the presence of the apolipoprotein E (ApoE) epsilon4 allele. Four groups (young subjects, young-old control subjects, old-old control subjects, and subjects with very mild DAT) engaged in an event-based prospective memory task wherein they responded to a specific word embedded in a general knowledge test. Results indicated that prospective memory performance was clearly impaired in the very mild DAT group relative to the healthy older control groups. Moreover, prospective memory performance appears to capture unique variance in discriminating these 2 groups above and beyond standard retrospective memory tests. However, prospective memory was not affected by ApoE status in the young-old control group and, contrary to predictions, the epsilon4+ old-old control subjects showed better performance than did the epsilon4- subjects. In contrast to the healthy individuals, in the very mild DAT group, epsilon4+ subjects showed deficits in performance relative to the epsilon4- subjects. Discussion focuses on prospective memory as a cognitive indicator of early stage DAT.
本研究考察了前瞻性记忆表现是否能够区分健康老龄化与阿尔茨海默病型（DAT）极轻度痴呆，以及因载脂蛋白E（ApoE）ε4等位基因的存在而有患DAT风险的个体。四组人群（年轻受试者、年轻老年人对照组、年老老年人对照组以及极轻度DAT受试者）参与了一项基于事件的前瞻性记忆任务，在该任务中，他们要对一般知识测试中嵌入的特定单词做出反应。结果表明，与健康老年对照组相比，极轻度DAT组的前瞻性记忆表现明显受损。此外，前瞻性记忆表现在区分这两组人群方面似乎能够捕捉到超出标准回顾性记忆测试的独特差异。然而，年轻老年人对照组的前瞻性记忆不受ApoE状态的影响，并且与预测相反，ε4+年老老年人对照组受试者的表现优于ε4-受试者。与健康个体不同，在极轻度DAT组中，ε4+受试者相对于ε4-受试者表现出缺陷。讨论聚焦于前瞻性记忆作为早期DAT认知指标的问题。
