Bika Eirini, Moraitou Despina, Masoura Elvira, Kolios George, Papantoniou Georgia, Sofologi Maria, Papaliagkas Vasileios, Ntritsos Georgios
Laboratory of Psychology, Section of Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, School of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece.
Laboratory of Neurodegenerative Diseases, Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Innovation (CIRI-AUTH), Balkan Center, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Buildings A & B, 10th km Thessaloniki-Thermi Rd, P.O. Box 8318, 57001 Thessaloniki, Greece.
Brain Sci. 2021 Aug 28;11(9):1140. doi: 10.3390/brainsci11091140.
Episodic buffer (EB), a key component of working memory, seems to have a rather complicated function as part of binding processes. Recent papers on the field claim that binding processes of working memory (WM) are assisted by attention and executive functions. On the same page, vascular pathology is gaining more ground as the main underlying cause for many brain pathologies. Hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, lack of exercise and smoking are the most common risk factors that people of all ages suffer from and constitute the main vascular risk factors responsible for a possible decline in executive functions and attention. Thus, this research is an attempt to examine the relation between the binding functions of WM and the existence of vascular risk factors via a computerized test focusing on feature binding. The study comprised adults (n = 229) with and without vascular risk factors. The main tools used were a biomarker questionnaire and a feature binding test (FBT). The results showed that participants who report suffering from one or more vascular risk factors had significantly lower performance on specific subtasks of the FBT in comparison to the participants who were healthy. This allows us to assume that there might be a positive association between feature binding and a vascular risk profile in adults, and such a test could be a useful diagnostic tool for early cognitive impairment due to incipient vascular pathology.
情景缓冲器（EB）是工作记忆的关键组成部分，作为绑定过程的一部分，其功能似乎相当复杂。该领域最近的论文称，工作记忆（WM）的绑定过程受注意力和执行功能的辅助。与此同时，血管病理学作为许多脑部疾病的主要潜在病因，正越来越受到关注。高胆固醇血症、高血压、肥胖、糖尿病、缺乏运动和吸烟是各年龄段人群最常见的危险因素，也是导致执行功能和注意力可能下降的主要血管危险因素。因此，本研究试图通过一项专注于特征绑定的计算机测试，来检验工作记忆的绑定功能与血管危险因素的存在之间的关系。该研究纳入了有和没有血管危险因素的成年人（n = 229）。主要使用的工具是生物标志物问卷和特征绑定测试（FBT）。结果显示，与健康参与者相比，报告患有一种或多种血管危险因素的参与者在FBT的特定子任务上的表现明显较差。这使我们能够假设，成年人的特征绑定与血管风险状况之间可能存在正相关，并且这样的测试可能是早期血管病理学所致早期认知障碍的有用诊断工具。
