Regional Cerebral Volume Loss Associated With Verbal Learning and Memory in Dementia of the Alzheimer Type

• Published in: Neuropsychology Vol. 13; no. 2; pp. 188 - 197
• Main Authors: Stout, Julie C, Bondi, Mark W, Jernigan, Terry L, Archibald, Sarah L, Delis, Dean C, Salmon, David P
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Psychological Association 01-04-1999
• Subjects: Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Alzheimer Disease - diagnosis; Alzheimer Disease - pathology; Alzheimer Disease - physiopathology; Alzheimer's Disease; Atrophy; Biological and medical sciences; Caudate Nucleus; Cerebral Atrophy; Cerebral Cortex; Degenerative and inherited degenerative diseases of the nervous system. Leukodystrophies. Prion diseases; Female; Geriatrics; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Medical sciences; Memory; Middle Aged; Neocortex - pathology; Nerve Net - physiopathology; Neurology; Neuropsychological Tests; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Regression Analysis; Temporal Lobe - pathology; Thalamus; Thalamus - pathology; Verbal Learning; Verbal Memory; Human; Temporal lobe; Memory disorder; Volumetric analysis; Nervous system diseases; Verbal learning; Cerebral cortex; Cognitive disorder; Alzheimer disease; Cerebral disorder; Atrophy; Verbal memory; Caudate nucleus; Central nervous system disease; Thalamus; Degenerative disease; Elderly
• ISSN: 0894-4105; 1931-1559
• DOI: 10.1037/0894-4105.13.2.188

Twenty-seven research participants with dementia of the
Alzheimer type were studied with the California Verbal Learning Test
(
D. C. Delis, J. H. Kramer, E. Kaplan,
& B. A. Ober, 1987
) and standardized volume measures
of the mesial temporal cortical gray matter, neocortical gray
matter, thalamus, and caudate nuclei, from magnetic resonance
imaging. A pattern of atrophic brain changes in the mesial temporal
lobes (MTL) and the thalamus, with relatively less severe atrophy in
the neocortical gray matter, was associated with poorer learning of
the word list. Similar patterns of brain atrophy were observed for
measures of delayed recall and recognition hits. However, for
delayed recall, neither contribution was statistically significant,
and for recognition hits, MTL was only at the trend level for
significance. These results provide evidence that the verbal memory
deficit of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is associated not only with the
mesial temporal limbic cortex, thought to be the site of earliest
and most severe pathology in AD, but also with damage in the
thalamus.