title: The effects of aging and Alzheimer's disease on associative recognition memory.
abstract: We investigated the effects of aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD) on item and associative recognition memory. Three groups of participants (younger adults, elderly adults, and AD patients) studied photographs of common objects that were located on either the left or the right side of a black computer screen inside either a red or a blue square. In a subsequent old/new recognition memory test, the participants were presented with four kinds of stimuli: "intact" stimuli, which were presented as they were during the study phase; "location-altered" stimuli, which were presented in a different location; "color-altered" stimuli, which were presented with a different surrounding color; and "new" stimuli, which consisted of photographs that had not been presented during the study phase. Compared with younger adults, the older adults showed equivalent performance in simple item recognition but worse performance in discriminating location-altered and color-altered stimuli. Compared with older adults, the AD patients showed equivalent performance in discriminating color-altered stimuli but worse performance in simple item recognition and the discrimination of location-altered stimuli. We speculate that distinct structural and functional changes in specific brain regions that are caused by aging and AD are responsible for the different patterns of memory impairment.
authors: Department of Behavioral Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan. hanaki-risa@rehab.go.jp
authors: Risa
authors: R
authors: Hanaki
authors: Nobuhito
authors: N
authors: Abe
authors: Toshikatsu
authors: T
authors: Fujii
authors: Aya
authors: A
authors: Ueno
authors: Yoshiyuki
authors: Y
authors: Nishio
authors: Kotaro
authors: K
authors: Hiraoka
authors: Tatsuo
authors: T
authors: Shimomura
authors: Osamu
authors: O
authors: Iizuka
authors: Mayumi
authors: M
authors: Shinohara
authors: Kazumi
authors: K
authors: Hirayama
authors: Etsuro
authors: E
authors: Mori
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000150:complications*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001245:Association Learning; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*