Chan A S, Butters N, Salmon D P
Psychology Service, San Diego Veterans Affairs, California, USA.
Neuropsychologia. 1997 Mar;35(3):241-8. doi: 10.1016/s0028-3932(96)00067-x.
Previous studies showed that the semantic networks of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients are disrupted in the early stages of the disease. The present study examined the semantic networks of 33 AD patients in different stages of disease severity to compare the quantitative and qualitative changes in their networks as the disease progresses. The properties of the semantic networks (e.g. the dimensionality and strength of the connections) were examined with multidimensional scaling and Pathfinder analyses. The results showed that, as AD patients became more demented, they focused less on abstract attributes in categorizing concepts, and have an alteration in the relative strength of associations between concepts. These findings indicate that the structure of semantic knowledge deteriorates in a systematic manner throughout the course of AD.
先前的研究表明，阿尔茨海默病（AD）患者的语义网络在疾病早期就会受到破坏。本研究对33名处于不同疾病严重程度阶段的AD患者的语义网络进行了检查，以比较随着疾病进展其网络在数量和质量上的变化。通过多维标度法和探路者分析来检查语义网络的属性（例如连接的维度和强度）。结果表明，随着AD患者痴呆程度加重，他们在对概念进行分类时对抽象属性的关注减少，并且概念之间关联的相对强度发生了改变。这些发现表明，在AD病程中，语义知识的结构会以一种系统性的方式恶化。
