title: Impaired Center-Surround Suppression in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease.
abstract: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is often associated with declined visual processing abilities. Here we tested whether the functions of center-surround suppression- a hallmark property in the visual system- are altered by AD. To this end, we recruited three groups of participants (AD, elderly, and young) in a motion direction discrimination task, in which we measured the temporal duration threshold of a  drifting Gabor with varying stimulus sizes. We first replicated the phenomena of center-surround suppression that the required duration for discriminating a high contrast grating decreases with increasing stimulus size. We then showed that the magnitudes of suppression varied among the three groups. There was progressive reduction of suppression in the elderly and AD groups compared with the young group. Interestingly, we found that the levels of suppression can predict the severity of dementia in the AD group. Our results suggest that AD is associated with impaired center-surround functions in the visual motion processing pathway.
authors: Department of Neurology, Liaocheng People's Hospital, Liaocheng city, Shandong Province, China.
authors: Xianbo
authors: X
authors: Zhuang
authors: Department of Neurology, Liaocheng People's Hospital, Liaocheng city, Shandong Province, China.
authors: Yanxiu
authors: Y
authors: Chen
authors: Department of CT room, Liaocheng Fourth People's Hospital, Liaocheng city, Shandong Province, China.
authors: Xianpeng
authors: X
authors: Zhuang
authors: Department of Neurosurgery, Liaocheng People's Hospital, Liaocheng city, Shandong Province, China.
authors: Tao
authors: T
authors: Xing
authors: Department of Neurology, Liaocheng People's Hospital, Liaocheng city, Shandong Province, China.
authors: Tuanzhi
authors: T
authors: Chen
authors: Department of Neurology, Liaocheng People's Hospital, Liaocheng city, Shandong Province, China.
authors: Guisheng
authors: G
authors: Jiang
authors: Department of Neurology, Liaocheng People's Hospital, Liaocheng city, Shandong Province, China.
authors: Xiafeng
authors: X
authors: Yang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000150:complications*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D015350:Contrast Sensitivity / Q000502:physiology; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012858:Size Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Aging; Alzheimer’s disease; center-surround suppression; cortical inhibition; motion perception