Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2016 Jan:74:217-32.
doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2015.10.014. Epub 2015 Nov 17.

Early-onset and late-onset Alzheimer's disease are associated with distinct patterns of memory impairment

Sven Joubert  1 , Natalina Gour  2 , Eric Guedj  3 , Mira Didic  4 , Claude Guériot  5 , Lejla Koric  5 , Jean-Philippe Ranjeva  6 , Olivier Felician  4 , Maxime Guye  6 , Mathieu Ceccaldi  4
Affiliations

Early-onset and late-onset Alzheimer's disease are associated with distinct patterns of memory impairment

Sven Joubert et al. Cortex. 2016 Jan.

Abstract

The goal of this study was to investigate the specific patterns of memory breakdown in patients suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's disease (EOAD) and late-onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD). Twenty EOAD patients, twenty LOAD patients, twenty matched younger controls, and twenty matched older controls participated in this study. All participants underwent a detailed neuropsychological assessment, an MRI scan, an FDG-PET scan, and AD patients had biomarkers as supporting evidence of both amyloïdopathy and neuronal injury. Results of the neuropsychological assessment showed that both EOAD and LOAD groups were impaired in the domains of memory, executive functions, language, praxis, and visuoconstructional abilities, when compared to their respective control groups. EOAD and LOAD groups, however, showed distinct patterns of memory impairment. Even though both groups were similarly affected on measures of episodic, short term and working memory, in contrast semantic memory was significantly more impaired in LOAD than in EOAD patients. The EOAD group was not more affected than the LOAD group in any memory domain. EOAD patients, however, showed significantly poorer performance in other cognitive domains including executive functions and visuoconstructional abilities. A more detailed analysis of the pattern of semantic memory performance among patient groups revealed that the LOAD was more profoundly impaired, in tasks of both spontaneous recall and semantic recognition. Voxel-Based Morphometry (VBM) analyses showed that impaired semantic performance in patients was associated with reduced gray matter volume in the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) region, while PET-FDG analyses revealed that poorer semantic performance was associated with greater hypometabolism in the left temporoparietal region, both areas reflecting key regions of the semantic network. Results of this study indicate that EOAD and LOAD patients present with distinct patterns of memory impairment, and that a genuine semantic impairment may represent one of the clinical hallmarks of LOAD.

Keywords: Cognition; Early-onset Alzheimer's disease; Late-onset Alzheimer's disease; Memory; Neuropsychological tests; Semantic memory.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources