title: The missing link between faces and names: evidence from Alzheimer's disease patients.
abstract: Retrieval of proper names is a cause of concern and complaint among elderly adults and it is an early symptom of patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). While it is well established that AD patients have deficits of proper name retrieval, the nature of such impairment is not yet fully understood. Specifically, it is unknown whether this deficit is due to a degradation of the links between faces and proper names, or due to deficits in intentionally accessing and retrieving proper names from faces. Here, we aim to investigate the integrity of the links between famous faces and proper names in AD while minimizing the impact of the explicit retrieval. We compare the performances of AD patients and elderly controls in a face-name priming task. We assess the integrity of the link between faces and names at two different levels: identity level - the name and face belong to the same person; and semantic level - the name and face belong to the same category (e.g., politicians). Our results reveal that AD patients compared with controls show intact semantic priming but reduced priming for person identity. This suggests that the deficits in intentionally retrieving proper names in AD are the result of a partial disruption of the network at the identity level, i.e., the links between known faces and proper names.
authors.affiliation: Center of Brain and Cognition, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain. calabria.marc@gmail.com
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Calabria
authors.forename: Alicia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sabio
authors.forename: Clara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: Mireia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hernández
authors.forename: Montserrat
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Juncadella
authors.forename: Jordi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gascón-Bayarri
authors.forename: Ramon
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Reñé
authors.forename: Jordi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ortiz-Gil
authors.forename: Lidia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ugas
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Costa
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D057567:Memory, Long-Term / Q000502:physiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology