Laboratoire EMC (EA 3082), Université Lyon 2 Lumière, 5 avenue Pierre Mendès, Bron, France.
J Alzheimers Dis. 2013;36(3):535-44. doi: 10.3233/JAD-130170.
Emotional material tends to be better retrieved in memory than neutral material. This emotional enhancement of memory may be related to the attentional effects of the amygdala's response to emotional stimuli. Because early neuropathological changes in Alzheimer's disease involve the amygdala and the hippocampus, it has been suggested that this effect is impaired in patients. However inconsistent results have been reported. The goal of our study was to evaluate the effects of emotion on picture recognition in patients affected by Alzheimer's disease, and to explore the link between this effect and the degree of amygdalar and hippocampal atrophy. Mild Alzheimer's disease patients (n = 15) and control participants (n = 20) performed an Old/New recognition task using pictures of negative, neutral, and positive emotional valence. Automated segmentation of their high-resolution T1 MRI scans was performed in order to obtain amygdalar and hippocampal volumes. Correlation analyses were then performed between volumetric data, memory, and the emotional effect on memory. An effect of emotion on memory was found for control participants (with positive items being better recognized than neutral and negative ones), with no correlation between this effect and medial temporal volumes, and a significant correlation between overall recognition scores and hippocampal volumes. Conversely, no emotional effect on memory was found across the group of patients; however, significant correlations were found between the loss of this effect and amygdalar and hippocampal volumes. These results tend to confirm a link between the loss of emotional effect on memory and neuropathological change in medial temporal structures during the course of Alzheimer's disease.
情绪材料在记忆中往往比中性材料更容易被提取。这种对记忆的情绪增强作用可能与杏仁核对情绪刺激的反应的注意力效应有关。由于阿尔茨海默病的早期神经病理学变化涉及杏仁核和海马体，因此有人认为这种效应在患者中受损。然而，报告的结果并不一致。我们的研究目的是评估情绪对阿尔茨海默病患者图片识别的影响，并探讨这种效应与杏仁核和海马体萎缩程度之间的联系。15 名轻度阿尔茨海默病患者和 20 名对照组参与者使用具有负性、中性和正性情绪效价的图片进行了旧/新识别任务。对他们的高分辨率 T1 MRI 扫描进行了自动分割，以获得杏仁核和海马体的体积。然后对体积数据、记忆和记忆中情绪的影响进行了相关分析。对照组参与者发现了情绪对记忆的影响（积极项目比中性和消极项目更容易被识别），这种效应与内侧颞叶体积之间没有相关性，而总体识别评分与海马体体积之间存在显著相关性。相反，在患者组中没有发现对记忆的情绪影响；然而，发现这种效应的丧失与杏仁核和海马体体积之间存在显著相关性。这些结果似乎证实了在阿尔茨海默病病程中，情绪对记忆的影响丧失与内侧颞叶结构的神经病理学变化之间存在联系。
