HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Collie, A. Articles by Maruff, P. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Collie, A. Articles by Maruff, P.

Selectively Impaired Associative Learning in Older People with Cognitive Decline

Mental Health Research Institute of Victoria

Catherine Myers

Rutgers University

Geoffrey Schnirman

Fordham University

Stephen Wood

University of Melbourne and Sunshine Hospital

Paul Maruff

La Trobe University

Older people with declining cognitive function typically display deficits in declarative memory processes, often most evident on tests of associative learning (AL). The hippocampal formation (HF) is thought to be critically involved in the encoding and retrieval of such associations, consistent with neuroimaging findings that the HF is damaged in early stages of neurodegenerative disease and in older people with AL impairments. In the clinic, older people with cognitive decline commonly report difficulties associating names with faces. However, we have observed that such people are particularly impaired on tests requiring the association of novel stimuli. In Experiment 1, a series of AL tasks were administered to older people with cognitive decline to determine whether they were impaired at simply making associations, or at making associations between novel stimuli. In Experiment 2, we measured HF function in these subjects by administering an AL task designed to differentiate between HF-damaged and HF-intact individuals. Our experimental protocols were guided by a computational model of HF function in AL described by Gluck and Myers (1997). Older people with cognitive decline displayed impaired performance on tasks designed to be highly dependent upon intact HF function, including a task in which novel patterns and spatial locations were to be associated. These results suggest that the AL impairments observed in older people with cognitive decline may be due to HF dysfunction.

Key Words: Cognitive decline • Associative learning • Hippocampal formation • Mild cognitive impairment • Learning • Cortico-hippocampal model • Computational models • Aging

This article has been cited by other articles:

				C. E. Myers, D. Shohamy, M. A. Gluck, S. Grossman, A. Kluger, S. Ferris, J. Golomb, G. Schnirman, and R. Schwartz Dissociating Hippocampal versus Basal Ganglia Contributions to Learning and Transfer J. Cogn. Neurosci., February 1, 2003; 15(2): 185 - 193. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]