Three tasks of selective attention were administered to test inhibition, visuospatial selective attention, and Decision-making in subjects with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Compared to normal elderly controls (NECs), subjects were significantly slower on the visuospatial and inhibitory tasks. The inhibitory measure revealed the largest (proportional reaction time) group difference. There were no significant inter-task correlations, suggesting the potential to fractionate selective attention. / To assess the relationship between inhibition and atrophy in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a manual segmentation was performed on T1 weighted MRI scans in NECs and AD subjects. We calculated the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF):grey matter ratio to obtain a biomarker of atrophy. The CSF:grey matter ratio was significantly greater in AD subjects than NECs. There was a significant correlation between task performance and the CSF:grey matter ratio in ADs, but not in NECs, suggesting that a relationship exists between inhibitory processes and atrophy in the ACC in AD.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.79031 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Levinoff, Elise J. |
| Contributors | Chertkow, Howard (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Division of Neuroscience.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001976384, proquestno: AAIMQ88246, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
Page generated in 0.0073 seconds