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1- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.
2- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran. , heysieattalab@gmail.com
3- Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Roozbeh Hospital and Geriatric Department Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract:   (218 Views)
Objectives: Considering that there is an increasing need for diagnostic symptoms to help reliably predict Alzheimer's disease. On the other hand, since neuropathological changes appear in brain areas, especially temporal areas before the onset of clinical symptoms, and there is a functional relationship between these structures with cognitive functions including spatial working memory )SWM(, pattern recognition memory )PRM(, and paired associated learning )PAL(, we aimed to investigate these three functions in the children of people with Alzheimer's disease and children of normal people, using a CANTAB computerized test set.
Materials and methods: The current research design was comparative. The statistical population of the current study was individuals with the age range of 30 to 55 years in Tehran in 1401. The research sample consisted of 55 people who were selected using the available sampling method. In this study, 31 people were the children of people with Alzheimer's disease, and 24 people were the children of normal people, who were referred to the neurology clinic. They were evaluated using three tests from the automatic set of Cambridge neuropsychological assessment, including SWM, PRM, and PAL, and the results were evaluated using SPSS software and independent T-test and its non-parametric equivalent (Mann-Whitney U) were compared between two groups.
Results: The results of this study showed significant differences in spatial working memory performance in two out of three items: between-conditions errors (normal children: 14.21 ± 12.21; children of Alzheimer's patients: 37.03 ± 22.22) and total error (normal children: 12.96 ± 9.3; children of Alzheimer's patients: 37.03 ± 22.22) between the groups (P<0.01). In visual recognition memory performance, there were significant differences in two items: mean delay (normal children: 1917.17 ± 364.03; children of Alzheimer's patients: 2186.94 ± 445.15) and percentage of correct responses (normal children: 96.33 ± 4.44; children of Alzheimer's patients: 84.39 ± 8.93) between the two groups. There was no significant difference in the mean delay for correct responses and the mean delay for incorrect responses (P>0.05). In continuous paired associate learning performance, there were significant differences in all three items examined: memory score (normal children: 23.08 ± 1.59; children of Alzheimer's patients: 17.65 ± 4.32), mean error for success (normal children: 0.54 ± 0.36; children of Alzheimer's patients: 2.31 ± 1.83), and total error (normal children: 4.54 ± 2.87; children of Alzheimer's patients: 17.10 ± 1.83) between the two groups (P<0.01).
Conclusion: Differences in PAL, PRM performance, and SWM between the children of Alzheimer's and non-Alzheimer people might be considered as signs of Alzheimer's disease.

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Type of Study: Original Research | Subject: Psychiatry and Psychology
Received: 2024/01/10 | Accepted: 2024/07/31 | Published: 2024/07/31

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