Dissociating neural correlates of memory binding functions in prodromal stages of Alzheimer’s disease

Description

Memory binding functions responsible for the temporary retention of conjunctions of features and long-term associative representations are dissociable. Whereas the former remains preserved in healthy ageing, the latter declines rapidly with age. However, both functions are extremely sensitive to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The neural correlates of such dissociation are poorly understood. We recently found that both memory binding functions are affected in the prodromal stages of AD. Neuroimaging analysis (i.e., Voxel-based morphometry) revealed that associative memory impairments are accounted for by atrophy of the hippocampus whereas conjunctive binding impairments are accounted for by atrophy of areas of the ventral visual stream. We will discuss the implications of such findings for the identification of normal and abnormal variants of ageing.

Period	20 May 2017
Held at	University of Sao Paolo, United Kingdom