title: Specific deficit of colour-colour short-term memory binding in sporadic and familial Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: Short-term memory binding of visual features which are processed across different dimensions (shape-colour) is impaired in sporadic Alzheimer's disease, familial Alzheimer's disease, and in asymptomatic carriers of familial Alzheimer's disease. This study investigated whether Alzheimer's disease also impacts on within-dimension binding processes. The study specifically explored whether visual short-term memory binding of features of the same type (colour-colour) is sensitive to Alzheimer's disease. We used a neuropsychological battery and a short-term memory binding task to assess patients with sporadic Alzheimer's disease (Experiment 1), familial Alzheimer's disease (Experiment 2) due to the mutation E280A of the Presenilin-1 gene and asymptomatic carriers of the mutation. The binding task assessed change detection within arrays of unicoloured objects (Colour Only) or bicoloured objects the colours of which had to be remembered separately (Unbound Colours) or together (Bound Colours). Performance on the Bound Colours condition (1) explained the largest proportion of variance between patients (sporadic and familial Alzheimer's disease), (2) combined more sensitivity and specificity for the disease than other more traditional neuropsychological tasks, (3) identified asymptomatic carriers of the mutation even when traditional neuropsychological measures and other measures of short-term memory did not and, (4) contrary to shape-colour binding, correlated with measures of hippocampal functions. Colour-colour binding and shape-colour binding both appear to be sensitive to AD even though they seem to rely on different brain mechanisms.
authors: Human Cognitive Neuroscience and Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK. mprodri1@staffmail.ed.ac.uk
authors: Mario A
authors: MA
authors: Parra
authors: Sergio Della
authors: SD
authors: Sala
authors: Sharon
authors: S
authors: Abrahams
authors: Robert H
authors: RH
authors: Logie
authors: Luis Guillermo
authors: LG
authors: Méndez
authors: Francisco
authors: F
authors: Lopera
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology*; D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D005260:Female; D006579:Heterozygote; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D009154:Mutation; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D053764:Presenilin-1 / Q000235:genetics; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D012372:ROC Curve; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D053764:Presenilin-1