Neuropsychological Markers of Medial Perirhinal and Entorhinal Cortex Functioning are Impaired Twelve Years Preceding Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Dementia

Daniela I. Hirni, Sasa L. Kivisaari, Sabine Krumm, Andreas U. Monsch, Manfred Berres, Fatma Oeksuez, Julia Reinhardt, Stephan Ulmer, Reto W. Kressig, Christoph Stippich, Kirsten I. Taylor*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

22 Citations (Scopus)
222 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Neurofibrillary pathology in Alzheimer’s dementia (AD) is associated with cognitive impairments and cortical thinning, and begins in medial perirhinal cortex (mPRC) before entering entorhinal cortex (ERC). Thus, mPRC dysfunction (e.g., semantic object memory impairments) may predate or accompany ERC (i.e., episodic memory) dysfunction in the preclinical course of typical AD. We developed formulae estimating mPRC and ERC integrity (i.e., cortical thickness) using common neuropsychological tests in 31 healthy individuals and 58 early AD patients. These formulae estimated the longitudinal courses of mPRC and ERC functioning in independent groups of 28 optimally healthy individuals who developed AD (NC-AD) over 2.8–13.4 years and 28 pairwise-matched, stable, healthy individuals (NC-NC). Mixed models demonstrated significantly worse NC-AD than NC-NC estimated mPRC and ERC functioning at the earliest observation, 12 years preceding diagnosis, and a significant decline 4 years preceding the AD diagnosis. These findings demonstrate that specific neuropsychological impairments occur early in the course of preclinical AD and that tasks measuring mPRC functioning may serve as additional, powerful markers of preclinical AD.
Original languageEnglish
Article number52
Pages (from-to)573-580
Number of pages8
JournalJOURNAL OF ALZHEIMERS DISEASE
Volume52
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 10 May 2016
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Keywords

  • Episodic memory
  • longitudinal
  • neurofibrillary pathology
  • preclinical cognitive marker
  • rhinal cortex
  • semantic memory

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