Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:41:36.120Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cognitive brain potentials and psychological deficits in Alzheimer's dementia and Korsakoff's amnesic syndrome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

D. H. R. Blackwood ,
D. M. St Clair ,
I. M. Blackburn  and
G. M. B. Tyrer
D. H. R. Blackwood*
Affiliation:
MRC Brain Metabolism Unit and Department of Psychiatry, Edinburgh, West Fife District General Hospital, Dunfermline
D. M. St Clair
Affiliation:
MRC Brain Metabolism Unit and Department of Psychiatry, Edinburgh, West Fife District General Hospital, Dunfermline
I. M. Blackburn
Affiliation:
MRC Brain Metabolism Unit and Department of Psychiatry, Edinburgh, West Fife District General Hospital, Dunfermline
G. M. B. Tyrer
Affiliation:
MRC Brain Metabolism Unit and Department of Psychiatry, Edinburgh, West Fife District General Hospital, Dunfermline
*
1 Address for correspondence: Dr D. H. R. Blackwood, University of Edinburgh, Department of Psychiatry, Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Morningside Park, Edinburgh EH10 5HF.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

Auditory-event-related potentials, including the P300 response, were recorded from 20 patients with Aizeheimer-type dementia (ATD), 17 patients with Korsakoff's syndrome (KS) and 23 age-matched control subjects. Each of the subjects was assessed using a version of the Luria Neuropsychological Investigation. Prolonged P300 latency and reduced P300 amplitude, which are features of normal ageing and which also occur, to a greater degree, in ATD, correlated significantly with degree of impairment of language ability in both Alzheimer patients and controls. On the other hand, the association between P300 latency changes and various tests of memory was not consistent across the three subject groups; there was a significant negative correlation between P300 latency and visual memory in ATD and a significant positive correlation in KS, whereas in controls no significant correlation was found. By contrast, P300 latency and memory for words were significantly negatively correlated in controls, but in neither of the patient groups.

Detailed studies of language function may further elucidate the complex relationships between neuropsychological measures and P300 changes in normal ageing and dementia.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , May 1987 , pp. 349 - 358
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adam, N. & Collins, G. I. (1978). Late components of the visual evoked potentials to search in short-term memory. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 44, 147–156.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Appell, J., Kertesz, A. & Fisman, M. (1982). A study of language functioning in Alzheimer patients. Brain and Language 17, 73–91.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ball, M. J., Fisman, M., Hachinski, V., Blume, W., Fox, A., Kral, V. A., Kirshen, A. J., Fox, H. & Merskey, H. (1985). A new definition of Alzheimer's disease: a hippocampal dementia. Lancet i, 14–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baribeau-Braun, J., Picton, T. W. & Gosselin, J. Y. (1983). Schizophrenia: a neurophysiological evaluation of abnormal information processing. Science 219, 874–876.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Begleiter, H., Porjesz, B. & Tenner, M. (1980). Neuroradiological and neurophysiological evidence of brain deficits in chronic alcoholics. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 62, Suppl. 286, 3–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blackburn, I. M. & Tyrer, G. M. B. (1985). The value of Luria's Neuropsychological Investigation for the assessment of cognitive dysfunction in Alzheimer type dementia. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 24, 171–179.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blackwood, D. H. R. & Christie, J. E. (1986). The effects of physostigmine on memory and auditory P300 in Alzheimer-type dementia. Biological Psychiatry 21, 557–560.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blackwood, D. H. R., Whalley, L. J., Christie, J. E., Blackburn, I. M., St Clair, D. M. & McInnes, A. (1986). Changes in auditory P3 event-related potential in schizophrenia and depression. British Journal of Psychiatry (in press).Google Scholar
Boller, F., Mizutani, T., Roessmann, U. & Gambetti, P. (1980). Parkinson's disease, dementia and Alzheimer's disease: clinico pathological correlations. Annals of Neurology 7, 329–335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Branconnier, R. J. & Divitt, D. R. (1983). Early detection of incipient Alzheimer's disease. In Alzheimer's Disease: The Standard Reference (Ed. Barry, Keisberg), pp. 219–220. The Free Press: New York.Google Scholar
Brown, W. S., Marsh, J. T. & La Rue, A. (1983). Exponential electrophysiological ageing: P3 latency. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 55, 277–285.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chapman, R. M., McCrary, J. W. & Chapman, J. A. (1981). Memory processes and evoked potentials. Canadian Journal of Physiology 35, 201–212.Google ScholarPubMed
Christensen, A. L. (1979). Luria's Neuropsychological Investigation, 2nd ed. Munksgaard: Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Desmedt, J. E. & Debecker, J. (1979). Wave form and neural mechanisms of the decision P300 elicited without pre-stimlulus CNV or readiness potential in random sequences of near-threshold auditory clicks and finger stimuli. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 47, 648–670.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Donchin, E. (1979). Event-related brain potentials: a tool in the study of human information processing. In Evoked Brain Potentials and Behaviour (ed. Begleiter, H.) pp. 13–75. Plenum Press: New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duffy, F. H., Albert, M. S. & McAnulty, G. (1984). Brain electrical activity in patients with prescribe and senile dementia of the Alzheimer type. Annals of Neurology 16, 439–448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faber, R. & Reichstein, M. B. (1981). Language dysfunction in schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry 139, 519–522.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ford, J. M., Roth, W. T., Mohs, R. C., Hopkins, W. F. & Kopell, B. S. (1979). Event-related potentials recorded from young and old adults during a memory retrieval task. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 47, 450–459.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ford, J. M., Duncan-Johnson, C. C., Pfefferbaum, A. & Kopell, B. S. (1982 a). Effects of stimulus sequence on P300 and RT in young and old. Journal of Gerontology 37, 696–704.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ford, J. M., Pfefferbaum, A. & Kopell, B. S. (1982 b). Effects of perceptual and cognitive difficulty on P3 and RT in young and old adults. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 54, 311–321.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Glen, A. I. M. & Christie, J. E. (1979). Early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: working definitions for clinical and laboratory criteria. In Alzheimer's Disease. Early Recognition of Potentially Reversible Deficits (ed. Glen, A. I. M. &Whalley, L. J.), pp. 122–128. Churchill Livingstone: Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Gomer, F. E., Spicuzza, R. J. & O'Donnel, R. D. (1976). Evoked potential correlates of visual item recognition during memory- scanning tasks. Physiological Psychology 4, 61–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodin, D. S., Squires, K. C. & Starr, A. (1978). Long latency event related components of the auditory evoked potential in dementia. Brain 101, 635–648.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hagberg, B. O. & Ingvar, D. H. (1976). Cognitive reduction in presenile dementia related to regional abnormalities of the cerebral blood flow. British Journal of Psychiatry 128, 209–222.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hakim, A. M. & Mathieson, G. (1979). Dementia in Parkinson disease: a neuropathological study. Neurology 29, 1209–1214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halgren, E., Squires, N. K., Wilson, C. L., Rohrbaugh, J. W., Babb, T. L. & Crandall, P. H. (1980). Endogenous potentials generated in the human hippocampal formation and amygdala by infrequent events. Science 210, 803–805.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hansch, E. C., Syndulko, K., Cohen, S. N., Goldbert, Z. I., Potvin, A. R. & Tourtellotte, W. W. (1982). Cognition in Parkinson Disease: an event-related potential perspective. Annals of Neurology 11, 599–607.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hillyard, S. A. & Kutas, M. (1983). Electrophysiology of cognitive processing. Annual Review of Psychology 34, 33–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hyman, B. T., Vanhoesen, G. W., Damasio, A. R. & Barnes, C. L. (1984). Alzheimer's disease: cell-specific pathology isolates the hippocampal formation. Science 225, 1168–1170.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnson, R. (1984). P300: A model of the variables controlling its amplitude. Annals of New York Academy of Science 425, 223–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kopelman, M. D. (1985). Multiple memory deficits in Alzheimertype dementia: implications for pharmacotherapy. Psychological Medicine 15, 527–541.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kutas, M., McCarthy, G. & Donchin, E. (1977). Augmenting mental chronometry: the P300 as a measure of stimulus evaluation time. Science 197, 792–795.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Larsen, B., Skinhoje, E. & Lassen, N. A. (1978). Variations in regional cortical blood flow in the right and left hemispheres during automatic speech. Brain 101, 193–209.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levit, R. A., Sutton, S. & Zubin, J. (1973). Evoked potential correlations of information processing in psychiatric patients. Psychological Medicine 3, 487–494.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Luria, A. R. (1966). Human Brain and Psychological Processes. Harper and Row: New York.Google Scholar
McCarthy, G. (1985). Intracranial recordings of endogenous ERP's in humans. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 61, 511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morice, R. & Ingram, J. C. I. (1982). Language analysis in schizophrenia: diagnostic implications. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 16, 11–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nie, N. H., Hull, C. H., Jenkins, J. G. & Steinbrenner, K. (1975). Statistical package for the Social Sciences, 2nd ed. McGraw-Hill: New York.Google Scholar
Pearson, R. C. A., Esiri, M. M., Hiorns, R. W., Wilcock, G. K. & Powell, T. P. S. (1985). Anatomical correlates of the distribution of the pathological changes in the neocortex in Alzheimer disease. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 82, 4531–4534.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pfefferbaum, A., Horvath, T. B., Roth, W. T. & Kopell, B. S. (1979). Event-related potential changes in chronic alcoholics. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 47, 637–647.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pfefferbaum, A., Ford, J. M., Roth, W. T. & Kopell, B. S. (1980). Age differences in P3-reaction time associations. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 49, 257–265.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pfefferbaum, A., Ford, J. M., Wenegrat, B. G., Roth, W. T. & Kopell, B. S. (1984 a). Clinical application of the P3 component of event-related potentials. I. Normal ageing. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 59, 85–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pfefferbaum, A., Wenegrat, B. G., Ford, J. M., Roth, W. T. & Kopell, B. S. (1984 b). Clinical application of the P3 component of event-related potentials. II. Dementia, depression and schizophrenia. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 59, 209–223.Google ScholarPubMed
Pritchard, W. S. (1981). Psychophysiology of P300. Psychological Bulletin 89, 506–540.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roth, W. T., Pfefferbaum, A., Kelly, A. F., Berger, P. A. & Kopell, B. S. (1981). Auditory event-related potentials in schizophrenia and depression. Psychiatric Research 4, 199–212.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Squires, N. K., Squires, K. C. & Hillyard, S. A. (1975). Two varieties of long-latency positive waves evoked by unpredictable auditory stimuli in man. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 38, 387–401.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Squires, K. C., Donchin, E., Herning, R. I. & McCarthy, G. (1977). On the influence of task relevance and stimulus probabilities on event-related potential components. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 42, 1–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Squires, N. K., Galbraith, G. C., Aine, C. J. (1979). Event-related potential assessment of sensory and cognitive deficits in the mentally retarded. In Human Evoked Potentials: Applications and Problems (ed. Lehmann, D. &Callaway, E.), pp. 397–413. Plenum Press: New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Squires, N. K., Halgren, E., Wilson, C. & Crandall, P. (1983). Human endogenous limbic potentials: across-modality and depth/surface comparisons in epileptic subjects. In: Tutorials in ERP Research: Endogenous Components (ed. Gaillard, A. W. K. &Ritter, W.), pp. 217–232. N. Holland: Amsterdam.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
St Clair, D. M. & Blackwood, D. H. R. (1985). Premature senility in Down's syndrome. Lancet ii, 34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
St Clair, D. M., Blackwood, D. H. R. & Christie, J. E. (1985). P300 and other long latency auditory evoked potentials in presenile dementia Alzheimer type and alcoholic Korsakoff syndrome. British Journal of Psychiatry 147, 702–706.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sternberg, S. (1966). High-speed scanning in human memory. Science 153, 652–654.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sutton, S., Braren, M., Zubin, J. & John, E. R. (1965). Evoked potential correlates of stimulus uncertainty. Science 150, 1187–1188.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sutton, S. & Ruchkin, D. S. (1984). The late positive complex. Advances and new problems. Annals of New York Academy of Science 425, 1–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Syndulko, K., Hansch, E. C., Cohen, S. N., Pearce, J. W., Goldberg, Z., Montana, B., Tourtellotte, W. W. & Potvin, A. (1982). Long-latency event related potentials in normal ageing and dementia. In Clinical Application of Evoked Potentials in Neurology (ed. Courjon, J. &Mauguiere, F.), pp. 279–286. Raven Press: New York.Google ScholarPubMed
Vaughan, H. G. & Gross, E. G. (1969). Cortical responses to light in unanaesthetized monkeys and their alteration by visual system lesions. Experimental Brain Research 8, 19–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verleger, R. & Cohen, R. (1978). Effects of uncertainty, modality shift and guess outcome on evoked potentials and reaction times in chronic schizophrenics. Psychological Medicine 8, 81–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walter, W. G., Cooper, R., Aldridge, U. J., McCallum, W. C. & Winter, A. L. (1964). Contingent negative variation: an electric sign of sensorimotor association and expectancy in the human brain. Nature 203, 300–304.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wechsler, D. (1945). A standardized memory scale for clinical use. Journal of Psychology 19, 87–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar