title: Selective impairment of optic flow perception in amnestic mild cognitive impairment: evidence from event-related potentials.
abstract: Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients have visuospatial deficits due to parietal dorsal stream dysfunction. Two distinct dorsal flows have been proposed: the inferior parietal (ventro-dorsal (v-d)) and superior parietal (dorso-dorsal (d-d)) streams. We aimed to elucidate how the two dorsal streams are altered in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and AD. Thus, the psychophysical threshold measurements and visual event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in patients with aMCI and AD, and in healthy old and young adults. The visual stimuli included radial optic flow (OF) derived from the v-d stream and horizontal (HO) motion conveyed from the d-d stream. The motion thresholds between aMCI patients and old adults were comparable. However, AD patients showed significantly higher motion thresholds for both stimuli compared with other groups. In lower-level ERPs, there were no significant differences in P1 (100 ms) and N1 (130 ms) for both stimuli among the groups. For higher-level ERPs, aMCI patients showed the prolonged latency of OF-specific P200 (v-d origin) and comparable latency of motion-related N170 (V5/MT origin) for both stimuli compared with old adults. In AD patients, both N170 and P200 latencies were significantly prolonged compared with other groups. P200 latency was closely correlated with the Mini-Mental State Examination score. These findings indicate that the v-d function related to OF perception is selectively impaired in aMCI, whereas AD has impairment of the distributed higher-level dorsal stream. Therefore, OF-specific P200 can be useful for detecting early functional changes of the brain in aMCI.
authors: Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Neurological Institute, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan. yamasa@neurophy.med.kyushu-u.ac.jp
authors: Takao
authors: T
authors: Yamasaki
authors: Yoshinobu
authors: Y
authors: Goto
authors: Yasumasa
authors: Y
authors: Ohyagi
authors: Akira
authors: A
authors: Monji
authors: Shinji
authors: S
authors: Munetsuna
authors: Motozumi
authors: M
authors: Minohara
authors: Katsuko
authors: K
authors: Minohara
authors: Jun-Ichi
authors: J
authors: Kira
authors: Shigenobu
authors: S
authors: Kanba
authors: Shozo
authors: S
authors: Tobimatsu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000150:complications; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001931:Brain Mapping; D060825:Cognitive Dysfunction / Q000150:complications*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008609:Mental Status Schedule; D008875:Middle Aged; D057849:Optic Flow / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time; D013223:Statistics as Topic