Ilardi Ciro Rosario, Federico Giovanni, La Marra Marco, Amato Raffaella, Iavarone Alessandro, Soricelli Andrea, Santangelo Gabriella, Chieffi Sergio
IRCCS SYNLAB SDN, Via Emanuele Gianturco 113, 80143, Naples, Italy.
Department of Experimental Medicine, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", Via Santa Maria Di Costantinopoli 16, 80138, Naples, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jan 14;15(1):1901. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-85785-7.
Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) may exhibit poorer performance in visuomotor tasks than healthy individuals, particularly under conditions with high cognitive load. Few studies have examined reaching movements in MCI and did so without assessing susceptibility to distractor interference. This proof-of-concept study analyzed the kinematics of visually guided reaching movements towards a target dot placed along the participants' midsagittal/reaching axis. Movements were performed with and without a visual distractor (flanker) at various distances from the reaching axis. Participants were instructed to avoid "touching" the flanker during movement execution. The whole sample included 11 patients with MCI due to Alzheimer's disease, 10 healthy older adults, and 12 healthy young adults, all right-handed. Patients with MCI performed reaching movements whose trajectories deviated significantly away from the flanker, especially when it was 1 mm away, with less consistent trajectories than controls. Also, our results suggest that trajectory curvature may discriminate between patients with MCI and healthy older adults. The analysis of reaching movements under conditions of visual interference may enhance the diagnosis of MCI, underscoring the need for multidimensional assessments incorporating both cognitive and motor domains.
轻度认知障碍（MCI）患者在视觉运动任务中的表现可能比健康个体更差，尤其是在认知负荷较高的情况下。很少有研究考察MCI患者的伸手动作，并且在研究过程中没有评估干扰物干扰的易感性。这项概念验证研究分析了视觉引导下朝着沿参与者矢状面/伸手轴放置的目标点进行伸手动作的运动学。在有和没有视觉干扰物（侧翼刺激）的情况下，在距伸手轴不同距离处进行动作。参与者被指示在动作执行过程中避免“触碰”侧翼刺激。整个样本包括11名因阿尔茨海默病导致MCI的患者、10名健康的老年人和12名健康的年轻人，均为右利手。MCI患者进行伸手动作时，其轨迹明显偏离侧翼刺激，尤其是当侧翼刺激距离为1毫米时，且轨迹一致性低于对照组。此外，我们的结果表明，轨迹曲率可能有助于区分MCI患者和健康老年人。对视觉干扰条件下伸手动作的分析可能会提高MCI的诊断水平，强调了纳入认知和运动领域的多维评估的必要性。
