Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and Aging and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA.
J Alzheimers Dis. 2022;90(1):313-322. doi: 10.3233/JAD-220348.
Susceptibility to proactive semantic interference (PSI) and the inability to ameliorate these difficulties with one additional learning trial have repeatedly been implicated as early features of incipient Alzheimer's disease (AD). Unfortunately, persistent failure to recover from PSI (frPSI) after repeated learning trials, are not captured by existing memory measures, or been examined in pre-mild cognitive impairment (PreMCI).
A novel Cognitive Stress Test (CST) was employed to measure the impact of PSI, initial failure to recover from PSI and persistent effects of PSI, despite multiple learning trials of the new to-be-remembered material (pfrPSI). We hypothesized that PSI deficits on the CST would persist in both PreMCI and amnestic MCI (aMCI) groups over repeated learning trials when compared to cognitively unimpaired (CU) older adults.
One hundred fifty older adults (69 CU, 31 PreMCI, and 50 aMCI) underwent a standardized clinical and neuropsychological evaluation. The CST was independent of diagnostic classification.
Even after adjusting for strength of initial learning, aMCI and PreMCI groups demonstrated greater persistent PSI (pfrPSI) relative to the CU group despite repeated learning trials of List B. Further, the aMCI group made a higher number of semantic intrusion errors relative to the PreMCI and CU groups on all List B Cued Recall trials.
Persistent PSI appears to be a common feature of aMCI and PreMCI. The possible theoretical mechanisms and empirical implications of these new findings are discussed.
主动语义干扰（PSI）的易感性以及在额外的一次学习试验中无法改善这些困难，这些特征已被反复提及是早期阿尔茨海默病（AD）的特征。不幸的是，在多次学习试验后仍无法从 PSI 中恢复（frPSI），这并未被现有记忆测量方法所捕捉到，也未在轻度认知障碍前（PreMCI）进行检查。
采用新型认知应激测试（CST）来测量 PSI、首次无法从 PSI 中恢复以及尽管对新的需要记忆的材料进行了多次学习试验后 PSI 的持续影响（pfrPSI）。我们假设 CST 上的 PSI 缺陷在 PreMCI 和遗忘型轻度认知障碍（aMCI）组中，在多次学习试验中会持续存在，而与认知正常的老年人（CU）相比。
150 名老年人（69 名 CU、31 名 PreMCI 和 50 名 aMCI）接受了标准化的临床和神经心理学评估。CST 与诊断分类无关。
即使在调整初始学习强度后，aMCI 和 PreMCI 组在多次学习 List B 后，仍表现出更大的持续 PSI（pfrPSI），而 CU 组则表现出更大的持续 PSI。此外，aMCI 组在所有 List B 线索回忆试验中犯语义侵入错误的数量均高于 PreMCI 和 CU 组。
持续的 PSI 似乎是 aMCI 和 PreMCI 的共同特征。讨论了这些新发现的可能理论机制和实证意义。
