Department of Psychobiology, University of Salamanca, Spain.
J Alzheimers Dis. 2011;25(3):525-33. doi: 10.3233/JAD-2011-110083.
This study examines the impact of automatic/controlled access processes on the semantic network in 30 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). The AD group was compared with a control group using a battery of neuropsychological tests, a variation of Hodges's semantic testing battery, designed to assess semantic knowledge. The AD group had markedly lower scores than the normal group on each semantic test, but with a different degree of deterioration depending on the nature of the processes (controlled/automatic) in accessing the semantic network. AD patients had poorer performances on the explicit semantic tasks mainly involving controlled-process access (e.g., the WAIS Similarities Subtest) than those involving mainly automatic-process access (e.g., the Verbal Automatism test). Analyses of confidence intervals allowed a gradient of impaired performances in increasing order to be elaborated: a) the Verbal Automatism test, b) the WAIS Vocabulary Subtest, c) the WAIS Information Subtest, d) the Letter Fluency Task, e) Naming as a Response to Definition, f) the Category Fluency Task, g) the WAIS Similarities Subtest, and h) the Oral Denomination 80 Test. The results of our study suggest that explicit semantic tasks needing passive or automatic processes to access semantic memory would be better preserved in AD.
本研究考察了自动/控制访问过程对 30 名阿尔茨海默病（AD）患者语义网络的影响。使用一系列神经心理学测试，包括霍奇斯语义测试电池的变体，对 AD 组和对照组进行了比较，旨在评估语义知识。AD 组在每项语义测试中的得分均明显低于正常组，但根据访问语义网络的过程（控制/自动）的性质，其恶化程度有所不同。AD 患者在主要涉及控制过程访问（例如，WAIS 相似性测验）的显性语义任务中的表现较差，而在主要涉及自动过程访问（例如，言语自动测验）的任务中表现较差。置信区间分析允许根据受损程度的增加来详细阐述梯度：a）言语自动测验，b）WAIS 词汇测验，c）WAIS 信息测验，d）字母流畅性测验，e）根据定义命名，f）类别流畅性测验，g）WAIS 相似性测验，h）口头命名 80 测验。我们的研究结果表明，需要被动或自动过程来访问语义记忆的显性语义任务在 AD 中可能会更好地保留。
