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Biomedical subjects

Eric Salmon

Publications and source records attributed to Eric Salmon.

25 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed2003

Effects of Alzheimer's disease on the recognition of novel versus familiar words: neuropsychological and clinico-metabolic data.

This study explored recognition memory performance for novel versus familiar words in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and normal controls (NCs), using an adaptation of E. Tulving and N. Kroll's (1995) procedure. Results showed that both groups exhibited more hits and more false alarms for familiar than for novel words. The groups did not differ in the recognition of familiar words, reflecting preserved familiarity processes in AD. However, AD patients made more false alarms than NCs in the recognition of novel words, reflecting impairment of recollection processes in AD. A positron emission tomography analysis of clinico-metabolic correlations in AD patients showed a correlation between recognition of novel words and right hippocampal activity, whereas recognition of familiar words was more related to metabolic activity in the left posterior orbitofrontal cortex.

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PubMed2002

Exploring the effect of action familiarity on SPTs recall performance in Alzheimer's disease.

This study examined the performance of normal controls (NC) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients on free recall, semantic cued recall and object cued recall of both subject-performed tasks (SPTs) and verbal descriptions of actions, by controlling familiarity of actions associated to objects. The results showed that both groups performed better after SPT encoding than after verbal encoding, in all three types of recall. In addition, this SPT advantage was greater for AD patients than for NC in the object cued recall test, emphasizing AD patients' sensibility to the congruence of cues between encoding and retrieval conditions. Following verbal encoding, NC showed a better recall for less familiar actions than for highly familiar actions, whereas AD patients exhibited the opposite pattern. These results reflect that AD patients did not benefit from a distinctiveness effect at encoding for improving subsequent retrieval of verbal information, probably due to a reduced level of elaboration during encoding. However, there was no effect of action familiarity on recall performance by both groups following SPT encoding. These results suggest that memory for verbal actions and SPTs is governed by different principles. In addition, they demonstrate the robustness of the SPT effect in AD patients, who were able to improve memory performance in the SPT condition not only with highly familiar actions but also with less familiar actions.

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PubMed2002

Functional brain imaging applications to differential diagnosis in the dementias.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The diagnosis of dementia rests on an improved knowledge and a better detection of early impairments, to which functional imaging can certainly contribute. RECENT FINDINGS: Progress has been observed at different levels. First, the understanding of different dementias has benefited from explorations of the neural substrate of dementia symptoms and from research into new markers. Second, diverse variables (clinical, anatomical, biochemical) have been related to impaired cerebral activity in Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, and progress in image analysis and in multimodal data acquisition has allowed a better understanding of the significance of brain activity disturbances. Third, functional imaging has been applied in well-designed clinical studies, and has provided important arguments for the diagnosis of characteristic clinical syndromes in the dementias. SUMMARY: The functioning of neural networks responsible for clinical symptoms in dementia remains an important research topic for functional imaging. The development of new tracers and new techniques for image processing should also improve the usefulness of brain imaging as a diagnostic tool.

Dementia↗
PubMed2002

Training early Alzheimer patients to use a mobile phone.

The mobile phone may be useful to keep in contact with spatially disoriented and memory impaired patients. In keeping with this idea, this study describes the training program developed to teach two patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (CI and ML) how to use their own mobile phone. Each training session was divided into two parts. In the first part, the spaced-retrieval technique was used to promote the consultation of a card pasted on the back of the phone. The card detailed each stage of phone utilization and which keys had to be pressed to call somebody. In the second part, the patients received repetitive exercises of calling based upon the errorless learning principle. At the end of three-months rehabilitation, the results showed different learning patterns for the patients. ML needed more spaced-retrieval sessions to spontaneously consult the card and to correctly use the phone, compared to CI. However, by the repetition of calling exercises, both patients showed a decrease of instruction card consultation, whereas they were still able to correctly call somebody. This learning ability is hypothesized to be a consequence of a relatively preserved procedural memory in both patients. In conclusion, this study highlights the effectiveness of combined specific learning techniques for improving AD patient's autonomy in daily life activities.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Frontal hypometabolism does not explain inhibitory dysfunction in Alzheimer disease.

A series of tasks assessing inhibitory processes was administered to patients with Alzheimer disease and control subjects. Two groups of patients with Alzheimer disease were examined: patients with hypometabolism restricted to the posterior (temporal and parietal) cerebral areas and patients with hypometabolism in both posterior and anterior (frontal) cerebral areas. The performances of the patients with Alzheimer disease were inferior to those of control subjects on all inhibitory tasks, but the two groups of patients obtained similar scores. These data indicate that frontal lobe hypometabolism is not necessary to produce inhibitory impairment in Alzheimer disease. Consequently, inhibitory dysfunction could be the consequence of a (partial) disconnection process between posterior and anterior cerebral areas.

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PubMedDate not supplied

Brain correlates of performance in a free/cued recall task with semantic encoding in Alzheimer disease.

The goal of this study was to explore in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) the brain correlates of free and cued recall performance using an adaptation of the procedure developed by Grober and Buschke (1987). This procedure, which ensures semantic processing and coordinates encoding and retrieval, has been shown to be very sensitive to an early diagnosis of AD. Statistical parametric mapping (SPM 99) was used to establish clinicometabolic correlations between performance at free and cued verbal recall and resting brain metabolism in 31 patients with AD. Results showed that patient's score on free recall correlated with metabolic activity in right frontal regions (BA 10 and BA 45), suggesting that performance reflected a strategic retrieval attempt. Poor retrieval performance was tentatively attributed to a loss of functional correlation between frontal and medial temporal regions in patients with AD compared with elderly controls. Performance on cued recall was correlated to residual metabolic activity in bilateral parahippocampal regions (BA 36), suggesting that performance reflected retrieval of semantic associations, without recollection in AD. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that the diagnostic sensitivity for Alzheimer's disease of the cued recall performance in the Grober and Buschke procedure (1987) depends on the activity of parahippocampal regions, one of the earliest targets of the disease. Moreover, the results suggest that the poor performance of patients with AD during free and cued recall is related to a decreased connectivity between parahippocampal regions and frontal areas.

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