ERIC Number: EJ959969
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Apr
Pages: 9
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0028-3932
EISSN: N/A
Medial Prefrontal Functional Connectivity--Relation to Memory Self-Appraisal Accuracy in Older Adults with and without Memory Disorders
Ries, Michele L.; McLaren, Donald G.; Bendlin, Barbara B.; Xu, Guofan; Rowley, Howard A.; Birn, Rasmus; Kastman, Erik K.; Sager, Mark A.; Asthana, Sanjay; Johnson, Sterling C.
Neuropsychologia, v50 n5 p603-611 Apr 2012
It is tentatively estimated that 25% of people with early Alzheimer's disease (AD) show impaired awareness of disease-related changes in their own cognition. Research examining both normative self-awareness and altered awareness resulting from brain disease or injury points to the central role of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) in generating accurate self-appraisals. The current project builds on this work--examining changes in MPFC functional connectivity that correspond to impaired self-appraisal accuracy early in the AD time course. Our behavioral focus was self-appraisal accuracy for everyday memory function, and this was measured using the Memory Function Scale of the Memory Awareness Rating Scale--an instrument psychometrically validated for this purpose. Using regression analysis of data from people with healthy memory (n = 12) and people with impaired memory due to amnestic mild cognitive impairment or early AD (n = 12), we tested the hypothesis that altered MPFC functional connectivity--particularly with other cortical midline structures and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex--explains variation in memory self-appraisal accuracy. We spatially constrained (i.e., explicitly masked) our regression analyses to those regions that work in conjunction with the MPFC to evoke self-appraisals in a normative group. This empirically derived explicit mask was generated from the result of a psychophysiological interaction analysis of fMRI self-appraisal task data in a separate, large group of cognitively healthy individuals. Results of our primary analysis (i.e., the regression of memory self-appraisal accuracy on MPFC functional connectivity) were generally consistent with our hypothesis: people who were less accurate in making memory self-appraisals showed attenuated functional connectivity between the MPFC seed region and proximal areas within the MPFC (including subgenual anterior cingulate cortex), bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, bilateral caudate, and left posterior hippocampus. Contrary to our expectations, MPFC functional connectivity with the posterior cingulate was not significantly related to accuracy of memory self-appraisals. Results reported here corroborate findings of variable memory self-appraisal accuracy during the earliest emergence of AD symptoms and reveal alterations in MPFC functional connectivity that correspond to impaired memory self-appraisal. (Contains 3 figures and 2 tables.)
Descriptors: Interaction Process Analysis, Alzheimers Disease, Diseases, Rating Scales, Interaction, Memory, Older Adults, Schemata (Cognition), Brain, Self Actualization, Multiple Regression Analysis, Neurological Organization, Neuropsychology
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A