Poster A2, Tuesday, August 20, 2019, 10:15 am – 12:00 pm, Restaurant Hall
Serial position effects at different delays differentially predict patterns of brain damage in dementia
Sasa Kivisaari1, Kirsten I. Taylor2, Andreas U. Monsch3, Marc Sollberger4, Nancy S. Foldi5;1Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, 2Neuroscience, Ophthalmology, and Rare Diseases (NORD), Roche Pharma Research and Early Development, Roche Innovation Center Basel, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, 3Memory Clinic, University Center for Medicine of Aging Basel, Felix-Platter Hospital, 4Memory Clinic, University Center for Medicine of Aging Basel, Felix Platter-Hospital, and Department of Neurology, University Hospital Basel, 5Department of Psychology, Queens College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Introduction: Serial Position Effects (SPE) in wordlist learning provide a rich set of metrics of cognitive functioning. In particular, the recall of primacy and recency items from the beginning and end of the word list, respectively, putatively have a distinct neuroanatomical basis. The two goals of this study were to (1) systematically map the neuroanatomical correlates of SPEs after Learning (across Trials 1-5) , Short delay (SD) and Long delay (LD) and (2) test whether progression of performance accuracy from Learning to LD serves as a sensitive measure of major and minor neurocognitive disorders. Method: Data of 236 individuals from longitudinal studies at the Basel Memory Clinic were examined. The data included California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) scores at learning, short delay (SD) and long delay (LD) from healthy control participants (NC, N = 62) and patients (PAT, N = 69) who met criteria for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or mild cognitive impairment. We acquired structural MRI scans (MPRAGE) from all participants, measured in the same 3T MRI scanner (MAGNETOM Allegra, Siemens). All accuracy scores were submitted to a mixed model analysis of covariance with group (NC, PAT) as the between-subject variable, and list position (primacy, middle, recency) and time (Learning, SD, LD) as within-subjects variables. The structural MRI data was subjected to voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analyses conducted in SPM8 running in Matlab. Results: Primacy, middle, and recency SPE scores of the California Verbal Learning Test at Learning, SD, and LD in healthy controls and patients with dementia-related pathology were correlated with MRI gray matter signal intensities. As expected, the VBM analyses revealed distinct patterns of brain-behavioral correlations depending on both the SPE (primacy, middle, recency) and the time-point (Learning, SD, LD). Interestingly, we also found that the healthy controls’ performance incrementally improved recall of primacy items from Learning to SD and to LD, i.e., “primacy progression”, whereas the patients’ did not. Moreover, this proportion of correct primacy items recalled at LD compared to Learning correlated with bilateral MTL regions, which commonly bear the brunt of pathology of Alzheimer’s disease. We did not observe a similar effect for either middle or recency list regions. Conclusions: The findings support the notion of distinct functional neuroanatomy of SPEs. The results suggest ‘primacy progression’ scores should be used as an accessible and sensitive measure for disease detection, progression, and therapeutic response.
Themes: Disorders: Acquired, Meaning: Lexical Semantics
Method: Other