Affiliations: [a] National Research Center for Dementia, Gwangju, Korea
| [b] Premedical Science, College of Medicine, Chosun University, Gwangju, Korea
| [c] Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, Chosun University/Chosun University Hospital, Gwangju, Korea
| [d] College of Natural Sciences, Chosun University, Gwangju, South Korea
| [e] Department of Neuropsychiatry, School of Medicine, Chosun University/Chosun University Hospital, Gwangju, Korea
Correspondence:
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Correspondence to: IL Han Choo, MD, PhD, Department of Neuropsychiatry, School of Medicine, Chosun University/Chosun University Hospital, 365 Pilmundaero Dong-gu Gwangju, 61452, South Korea. Tel.: +82 62 220 3104; Fax: +82 62 225 3659; E-mail: ilhan.choo@chosun.ac.kr.
Abstract: Background: For the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), there is increasing interest in pre-mild cognitive impairment (pre-MCI). Objective: We explored the neuropsychological characteristics in a group of pre-MCI and cognitively normal (CN) elderly individuals, with the aim of providing measures sensitive to cognitive change in pre-MCI. Methods: We included 188 CN elderly and 77 individuals with pre-MCI. All participants underwent comprehensive clinical and neuropsychological assessment. We compared 17 cognitive tests between the CN and pre-MCI groups by using one-way ANOVAs with false discovery rate correction for multiple comparisons. Pearson’s correlations were also obtained between episodic memory and executive function tests in the pre-MCI group. Results: The pre-MCI group showed significantly lower scores for visual immediate recall, fluency tests, and Stroop color naming in the color-word incongruent condition than the CN group (p < 0.05). Most of these executive function measures were significantly correlated with episodic memory (p < 0.05). There were no significant group-differences in other tests assessing attention, verbal memory, visuospatial ability, and language. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that poor executive function especially demanding inhibition and goal-directed behaviors within time limit could be the characteristics of the very early cognitive sign in the course of AD.
Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, early detection, executive function, mild cognitive impairment
