Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
J Alzheimers Dis. 2018;66(2):693-706. doi: 10.3233/JAD-180627.
Music evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs) have been documented in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD), but it is unclear whether music is more effective than other familiar stimuli at evoking memories.
To explore the frequency and specificity of memories in response to famous songs compared with photographs of famous events (photograph evoked autobiographical memories, PEAMs), and whether stimuli from the period of the reminiscence bump (10-30 years of age) were more likely to elicit memories.
10 participants with AD and 10 aged-matched healthy elderly people reported memories following exposure to 2 songs (longest time at number one in Australian music charts) and 2 photographs (of prominent famous events) from each decade from 1930 to 2010.
PEAMs were more frequent than MEAMs in healthy elderly (p < 0.05), but no such differences were observed among people with AD. There was no difference in the frequency of MEAMs between groups, but people with AD showed a significant decline in the frequency of PEAMs. In both groups, MEAMs were typically less specific than PEAMs and comprised semantic knowledge or repeated/extended events. Stimuli from when participants were aged 10-30 years triggered more frequent memories compared with stimuli from later decades, but this was only statistically significant for MEAMs.
Our findings indicate a preserved mnemonic effect of music relative to pictures in this patient population, corroborating suggestions that MEAMs represent an island of preservation during the progression of AD.
阿尔茨海默病（AD）患者会产生与音乐相关的自传体记忆（MEAMs），但目前尚不清楚音乐是否比其他熟悉的刺激更能有效地唤起记忆。
探讨与著名歌曲相比，照片（照片引发的自传体记忆，PEAMs）引发的记忆的频率和特异性，以及回忆高峰期（10-30 岁）的刺激是否更有可能引发记忆。
10 名 AD 患者和 10 名年龄匹配的健康老年人在暴露于 2 首歌曲（澳大利亚音乐排行榜上排名第一时间最长）和 2 张照片（著名事件）后，报告了记忆。这些照片来自 1930 年至 2010 年的每个十年。
在健康老年人中，PEAMs 的频率高于 MEAMs（p<0.05），但 AD 患者中没有观察到这种差异。MEAMs 的频率在两组之间没有差异，但 AD 患者的 PEAMs 频率明显下降。在两组中，MEAMs 的特异性通常低于 PEAMs，包括语义知识或重复/扩展事件。与来自较晚几十年的刺激相比，参与者年龄在 10-30 岁时的刺激引发了更频繁的记忆，但这仅在 MEAMs 方面具有统计学意义。
我们的研究结果表明，与图片相比，音乐在该患者群体中具有保留的记忆效应，这证实了 MEAMs 代表 AD 进展过程中保留的一个岛屿的观点。
