Abnormal spatial and non-spatial cueing effects in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.

Journal article

Our aim was to further characterize the clinical concept of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). We examined visual attention-related processing in 12 patients with amnestic MCI, 16 healthy older adults and 16 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) by measuring performance on computer-based tests of attentional disengagement, alerting ability, and inhibition of return. Unlike the healthy older controls, the patients with AD and the patients with amnestic MCI exhibited a significant detriment in both the ability to disengage attention from an incorrectly cued location and the ability to use a visual cue to produce an alerting effect. The pattern of results displayed by the MCI group indicates that patients who only appear clinically to suffer from a deficit in memory also display a deficit in specific aspects of visual attention-related processing, which closely resemble the magnitude seen in AD.

Authors: Tales, A; Snowden, R; Haworth, J; Wilcock, G

• Publication status: Published
• Journal: Neurocase
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 85-92
• Publication date: 2005-02-01
• DOI: 10.1080/13554790490896983
• EISSN: 1465-3656
• ISSN: 1355-4794
• Language: English
• Keywords: Cues; Retrospective Studies; Psychomotor Performance; Time Factors; Mental Status Schedule; Space Perception; Aged; Photic Stimulation; Alzheimer Disease; Cognition Disorders; Female; Reproducibility of Results; Male; Analysis of Variance; Neuropsychological Tests; Attention; Humans; Aged, 80 and over; Reaction Time