title: Associative and semantic memory deficits in amnestic mild cognitive impairment as revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To identify the neural underpinnings of cognitive deficits associated with memory problems in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI).
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is increasingly used to assess patients with aMCI and could potentially help predict conversion to Alzheimer disease, but imaging results so far have been inconsistent in identifying brain activation patterns in aMCI. There is an immediate need to identify the neural substrates of different memory components that are affected by aMCI.
  
  
  METHODS
  We used fMRI to study 13 patients with aMCI and 15 healthy age-matched controls during an associative memory encoding and recognition task. The picture-pair memory task encompassed different types of recognition trials to investigate recollection versus familiarity, and manipulated the relationship between paired pictures to investigate semantic processing.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Brain activation during both encoding and recognition was lower in patients than controls, with greatest implications in the medial temporal lobe during encoding. Patients also had much greater impairment of associative recollection than recognition based on familiarity, along with a failure to recruit regions that normally respond to violations of learned associations. Finally, patients' impaired semantic encoding was reflected by deficient activation of a left frontotemporal network responsible for elaborate semantic processes.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We show that a simple fMRI task may be sensitive to deficits in different memory components in aMCI and could thus prove useful in the development of an fMRI tool to assess and monitor patients.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Neurology and Imaging of Cognition, University of Geneva, Switzerland. marian.vandermeulen@uni.lu
authors.forename: Marian
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: van der Meulen
authors.forename: Cécile
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lederrey
authors.forename: Sebastian W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Rieger
authors.forename: Mitsouko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: van Assche
authors.forename: Sophie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schwartz
authors.forename: Patrik
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vuilleumier
authors.forename: Frédéric
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Assal
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D060825:Cognitive Dysfunction / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D059907:Functional Neuroimaging; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*