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Alzheimer's Research & Therapy
Published in: Alzheimer's Research & Therapy 1/2017

Open Access 01-12-2017 | Research

A cognitive electrophysiological signature differentiates amnestic mild cognitive impairment from normal aging

Authors: Juan Li, Lucas S. Broster, Gregory A. Jicha, Nancy B. Munro, Frederick A. Schmitt, Erin Abner, Richard Kryscio, Charles D. Smith, Yang Jiang

Published in: Alzheimer's Research & Therapy | Issue 1/2017

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Abstract

Background

Noninvasive and effective biomarkers for early detection of amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) before measurable changes in behavioral performance remain scarce. Cognitive event-related potentials (ERPs) measure synchronized synaptic neural activity associated with a cognitive event. Loss of synapses is a hallmark of the neuropathology of early Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that ERP responses during working memory retrieval discriminate aMCI from cognitively normal controls (NC) matched in age and education.

Methods

Eighteen NC, 17 subjects with aMCI, and 13 subjects with AD performed a delayed match-to-sample task specially designed not only to be easy enough for impaired participants to complete but also to generate comparable performance between subjects with NC and those with aMCI. Scalp electroencephalography, memory accuracy, and reaction times were measured.

Results

Whereas memory performance separated the AD group from the others, the performance of NC and subjects with aMCI was similar. In contrast, left frontal cognitive ERP patterns differentiated subjects with aMCI from NC. Enhanced P3 responses at left frontal sites were associated with nonmatching relative to matching stimuli during working memory tasks in patients with aMCI and AD, but not in NC. The accuracy of discriminating aMCI from NC was 85% by using left frontal match/nonmatch effect combined with nonmatch reaction time.

Conclusions

The left frontal cognitive ERP indicator holds promise as a sensitive, simple, affordable, and noninvasive biomarker for detection of early cognitive impairment.
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Metadata
Title
A cognitive electrophysiological signature differentiates amnestic mild cognitive impairment from normal aging
Authors
Juan Li
Lucas S. Broster
Gregory A. Jicha
Nancy B. Munro
Frederick A. Schmitt
Erin Abner
Richard Kryscio
Charles D. Smith
Yang Jiang
Publication date
01-12-2017
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
Alzheimer's Research & Therapy / Issue 1/2017
Electronic ISSN: 1758-9193
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s13195-016-0229-3

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