254 results on '"Carlesimo GA"'
Search Results
2. Recognition disorders for famous faces and voices: a review of the literature and normative data of a new test battery
- Author
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Quaranta, D, Piccininni, C, Carlesimo, G, Luzzi, S, Marra, C, Papagno, C, Trojano, L, Gainotti, G, Carlesimo, GA, PAPAGNO, COSTANZA, Gainotti, G., Quaranta, D, Piccininni, C, Carlesimo, G, Luzzi, S, Marra, C, Papagno, C, Trojano, L, Gainotti, G, Carlesimo, GA, PAPAGNO, COSTANZA, and Gainotti, G.
- Abstract
Several anatomo-clinical investigations have shown that familiar face recognition disorders not due to high level perceptual defects are often observed in patients with lesions of the right anterior temporal lobe (ATL). The meaning of these findings is, however, controversial, because some authors claim that these patients show pure instances of modality-specific ‘associative prosopagnosia’, whereas other authors maintain that in these patients voice recognition is also impaired and that these patients have a ‘multimodal person recognition disorder’. To solve the problem of the nature of famous faces recognition disorders in patients affected by right ATL lesions, it is therefore very important to verify with formal tests if these patients are or are not able to recognize others by voice, but a direct comparison between the two modalities is hindered by the fact that voice recognition is more difficult than face recognition. To circumvent this difficulty, we constructed a test battery in which subjects were requested to recognize the same persons (well-known at the national level) through their faces and voices, evaluating familiarity and identification processes. The present paper describes the ‘Famous People Recognition Battery’ and reports the normative data necessary to clarify the nature of person recognition disorders observed in patients affected by right ATL lesions.
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- 2016
3. When the amnestic mild cognitive impairment disappears: characterisation of the memory profile
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Perri, R, Carlesimo, Ga, Serra, L, Caltagirone, C, Alberoni, M, Appollonio, I, da Mossa, C, Bonaiuto, S, Bottini, G, Caffarra, P, Carlomagno, S, Carolei, A, Sucapane, P, De Bastiani, P, Di Luca, M, Franceschi, M, Gallucci, M, Gambina, G, Ghidoni, E, Girotti, F, Giubilei, F, Lorusso, S, Marchetti, C, Monastero, R, Mina, C, Padovani, A, Perini, M, Pettenati, C, Piras, Mr, Provinciali, L, Quartarone, Angelo, Graceffa, A, Senin, U, Tognoni, G, Zagnoni, P, Grossi, E, Savarè, R., Perri, R, Carlesimo, G, Serra, L, Caltagirone, C, Alberoni, M, Appollonio, I, da Mossa, C, Bonaiuto, S, Bottini, G, Caffarra, P, Carlomagno, S, Carolei, A, Sucapane, P, De Bastiani, P, Di Luca, M, Franceschi, M, Gallucci, M, Gambina, G, Ghidoni, E, Girotti, F, Giubilei, F, Lorusso, S, Marchetti, C, Monastero, R, Mina, C, Padovani, A, Perini, M, Pettenati, C, Piras, M, Provinciali, L, Quartarone, A, Graceffa, A, Senin, U, Tognoni, G, Zagnoni, P, Grossi, E, Savarè, R, and Perri R, Carlesimo GA, Serra L, Caltagirone C, Monastero R, Early Diagnosis Group of the Italian Interdisciplinary Network on Alzheimer's Disease
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Male ,memoria ,neuropsychology ,Audiology ,Neuropsychological Tests ,Alzheimer diseaseMemoryMild cognitive impairmentNeuropsychologyPreclinical dementia ,deterioramento cognitivo lieve ,Long-term memory ,Cognitive disorder ,Neuropsychology ,preclinical dementia ,Cognition ,General Medicine ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology ,Memory, Short-Term ,Disease Progression ,Female ,Settore MED/26 - Neurologia ,medicine.symptom ,Alzheimer's disease ,Psychology ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Amnesia ,Humans ,Alzheimer Disease ,Aged ,Mental Recall ,Cognition Disorders ,Memory ,Recognition (Psychology) ,Psychomotor Performance ,Follow-Up Studies ,M-PSI/02 - PSICOBIOLOGIA E PSICOLOGIA FISIOLOGICA ,behavioral disciplines and activities ,mild cognitive impairment ,mental disorders ,Neuropsychologia ,medicine ,Memory disorder ,MED/26 - NEUROLOGIA ,Recognition, Psychology ,medicine.disease ,MCI ,nervous system diseases ,Short-Term ,memory ,Alzheimer disease ,MED/09 - MEDICINA INTERNA ,human activities ,Neuroscience - Abstract
BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Subjects affected by mild cognitive impairment (MCI) may improve during the observation period. This is the first study investigating qualitative features of memory deficits in subjects affected by reversible MCI [reversible cognitive impairment (RCI)]. METHODS: Baseline cognitive and memory performances of 18 subjects affected by amnestic MCI who had normalized cognitive performances at follow-ups were compared with those of 76 amnestic MCI subjects who still showed impaired cognitive performances at the 24-month follow-up (MCI) and with those of a group of 87 matched control subjects (normal controls). RESULTS: Compared with normal controls the memory deficit in the MCI group affected all aspects of explicit long-term memory functioning; in the RCI group, instead, the memory deficit only affected the free recall of verbal material, particularly when the encoding could be improved by the use of semantic strategies. CONCLUSIONS: These results are consistent with the view that the memory deficit in the MCI group is due to a very early degenerative pathology; in the RCI group, instead, a transitory reduction of processing resources, resulting a poor encoding of incoming material, is likely at the origin of the reversible memory disorder.
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- 2009
4. Preclinical dementia: an Italian multicentre study on amnestic mild cognitive impairment
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Perri R, Serra L, Carlesimo GA, Caltagirone C and the Early Diagnosis Group of the Italian Interdisciplinary Network on Alzheimer’s Disease, Alberoni M, Appollonio I, Bonaiuto S, Bottini G, Caffarra P, Caltagirone C, Carlomagno S, Carolei A, De Bastiani P, Di Luca M, Franceschi M, Gallucci M, Gambina G, Ghidoni E, Girotti F, Giubilei F, Lorusso S, Marchetti C, Monastero R, Padovani A, Perini M, Pettenati C, Piras MR, Provinciali L, Quartarone A, Graceffa A, Senin U, Tognoni C, Zagnoni P, Grossi E, Savarè R, and Perri R, Serra L, Carlesimo GA, Caltagirone C and the Early Diagnosis Group of the Italian Interdisciplinary Network on Alzheimer’s Disease, Alberoni M, Appollonio I, Bonaiuto S, Bottini G, Caffarra P, Caltagirone C, Carlomagno S, Carolei A, De Bastiani P, Di Luca M, Franceschi M, Gallucci M, Gambina G, Ghidoni E, Girotti F, Giubilei F, Lorusso S, Marchetti C, Monastero R, Padovani A, Perini M, Pettenati C, Piras MR, Provinciali L, Quartarone A, Graceffa A, Senin U, Tognoni C, Zagnoni P, Grossi E, Savarè R
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Male ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Clinical Dementia Rating ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Audiology ,Pattern Recognition ,Neuropsychological Tests ,Cohort Studies ,Alzheimer Disease ,Predictive Value of Tests ,Alzheimer's disease, Dementia, Mild cognitive impairment, Neurospychology ,medicine ,Dementia ,Memory impairment ,Humans ,Memory disorder ,Prospective Studies ,Psychiatry ,Disease Progression ,Aged ,Cognition Disorders ,Italy ,Verbal Learning ,Pattern Recognition, Visual ,Follow-Up Studies ,Amnesia ,Female ,Alzheimer’s disease , Mild cognitive impairment, Dementia , Neurospychology ,Cognitive disorder ,Neuropsychology ,Mild cognitive impairment ,Cognition ,Alzheimer's disease ,Neurospychology ,medicine.disease ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Settore MED/26 - Neurologia ,Geriatrics and Gerontology ,Psychology ,Visual - Abstract
Background: Different rates and cognitive predictors of conversion to dementia have been reported in subjects with different kinds of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Methods: A prospective, 24-month follow-up study, involving 269 subjects who strictly fulfilled criteria for the amnestic MCI. Results: Conversion rate to dementia was 21.4% per year. Seventy-nine out of the 83 individuals who developed dementia were affected by probable Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Among others, at the 24-month follow-up 24.1% were still affected by amnestic MCI, 13.3% had changed their neuropsychological profile of impairment and 17.2% were cognitively normalised. Compared to subjects who did not convert to AD, those who did convert showed poorer immediate and delayed recall and recognition of verbal and visual material at baseline as well as reduced executive abilities. A combination of age, Clinical Dementia Rating boxes and scores on delayed recall and recognition of verbal and visual material accurately identified 86% of the subjects who developed AD. Conclusions: Elderly subjects affected by an isolated memory disorder have a high probability of developing AD. The ability of verbal and visual measures to predict incipient dementia of memory impairment may be increased by the simultaneous assessment of individual features, such as age or rate of functional impairment.
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- 2007
5. Processi di Recollection e Familiarità in compiti di riconoscimento in pazienti con amnesia ippocampale
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SERRA L, FADDA L, CALTAGIRONE C, CARLESIMO GA, TURRIZIANI, Patrizia, SERRA L, TURRIZIANI P, FADDA L, CALTAGIRONE C, and CARLESIMO GA
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- 2005
6. Recognition disorders for famous faces and voices: a review of the literature and normative data of a new test battery
- Author
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QUARANTA, DAVIDE, PICCININNI, CHIARA, Carlesimo, GA, Luzzi, S, MARRA, CAMILLO, PAPAGNO, COSTANZA, TROJANO, LUIGI, GAINOTTI, GUIDO, QUARANTA, DAVIDE, PICCININNI, CHIARA, Carlesimo, GA, Luzzi, S, MARRA, CAMILLO, PAPAGNO, COSTANZA, TROJANO, LUIGI, and GAINOTTI, GUIDO
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- 2015
7. Influence of controlled encoding and retrieval facilitation on memory performance in patients with different profiles of mild cognitive impairment
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Perri, R, Monaco, M, Fadda, L, Serra, L, Marra, Camillo, Caltagirone, C, Bruni, Ac, Curcio, S, Bozzali, M, Carlesimo, Ga, Marra, Camillo (ORCID:0000-0003-3994-4044), Perri, R, Monaco, M, Fadda, L, Serra, L, Marra, Camillo, Caltagirone, C, Bruni, Ac, Curcio, S, Bozzali, M, Carlesimo, Ga, and Marra, Camillo (ORCID:0000-0003-3994-4044)
- Abstract
Memory tests able to differentiate encoding and retrieval processes from the memoranda storing ones should be used to differentiate patients in a very early phase of AD. In fact, individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) can be characterized by two different memory profiles: a pure amnestic one (with poor learning and retrieval and poor improvement when encoding is assisted and retrieval is facilitated) and a dysexecutive one (with inefficient encoding and/or poor retrieval strategies and improvement with assisted encoding and retrieval). The amnestic profile characterizes subjects affected by medio-temporal atrophy typical of AD. In this study, a Grober-Buschke memory procedure was used to evaluate normal controls and MCI patients with different cognitive profiles: pure amnestic (aMCIsd), amnestic plus other cognitive impairments (aMCImd) and non-amnestic (naMCI). An index of sensitivity of cueing (ISC) measured the advantage passing from free to cued recall. Results showed that both strategic and consolidation abilities were impaired in the aMCIsd and aMCImd groups and were preserved in the naMCI group. aMCImd, however, compensated the memory deficit with assisted encoding and retrieval, but aMCIsd performed very poorly. When MCI subjects were defined according to the ISC value, subjects with poor ISC were primarily in the aMCIsd group and, to a lesser extent, in the aMCImd group and the naMCI group. Finally, patients with a poor ISC showed cerebral atrophy documented in the precocious phase of AD and the retrosplenial cerebral areas seemed to be the most useful areas for identifying patients in the early phase of AD.
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- 2015
8. Standardizzazione di due test di memoria per uso clinico: Breve raconto e Figura di Rey
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Carlesimo, Ga, Buccione, I, Fadda, L, Graceffa, A, Mauri, Marco, Lorusso, S, Bevilacqua, G, and Caltagirone, C.
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- 2002
9. Performing prototype distortion tasks requires no contribution from the explicit memory systems: Evidence from amnesic MCI patients in a new experimental paradigm
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Zannino, Gd, Perri, R, Zabberoni, Silvia, Caltagirone, C, Marra, Camillo, Carlesimo, Ga, Marra, Camillo (ORCID:0000-0003-3994-4044), Zannino, Gd, Perri, R, Zabberoni, Silvia, Caltagirone, C, Marra, Camillo, Carlesimo, Ga, and Marra, Camillo (ORCID:0000-0003-3994-4044)
- Abstract
Evidence shows that amnesic patients are able to categorize new exemplars drawn from the same prototype as in previously encountered items. It is still unclear, however, whether this ability is due to a spared implicit learning system or residual explicit memory and/or working memory resources. In this study, we used a new paradigm devised expressly to rule out any possible contribution of episodic and working memory in performing a prototype distortion task. We enrolled patients with amnesic MCI and Normal Controls. Our paradigm consisted of a study phase and a test phase; two-thirds of the participants performed the study phase and all participants performed the test phase. In the study phase, participants had to judge how pleasant morphed faces, drawn from a single prototype, seemed to them. Half of the participants were shown faces drawn from the A-prototype and half from the B-prototype. A- and B-faces were opposite in a morphing space with a neutral human face at the center. In the test phase, participants had to judge the regularity of faces they had never seen before. Three different types of faces were shown in the test phase, that is, A-, B-, or neutral-faces. We expected that implicit learning of the category boundaries would lead to a category-specific increase in perceived regularity. The results confirmed our predictions. In fact, trained subjects (compared with subjects who did not undergo the study phase) assigned higher regularity scores to new faces drawn from the same prototype as the faces seen during training, and they gave lower regularity scores to new faces drawn from the opposite prototype. This effect was super imposable across subjects' groups.
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- 2012
10. The Mental Deterioration Battery: normative data, diagnostic reliability and qualitative analyses of cognitive impairment. The Group for the Standardization of the Mental Deterioration Battery
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Carlesimo, Ga, Caltagirone, C, Gainotti, Guido, Fadda, L, Gallassi, R, Lorusso, S., Marfia, G, Marra, Camillo, and Parnetti, L.
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Adult ,Aged, 80 and over ,Male ,Urban Health ,Reproducibility of Results ,Rural Health ,Syndrome ,Middle Aged ,Neuropsychological Tests ,Reference Standards ,Sensitivity and Specificity ,Settore MED/26 - NEUROLOGIA ,Evaluation Studies as Topic ,Predictive Value of Tests ,Reference Values ,80 and over ,Linear Models ,Humans ,Dementia ,Female ,Cognition Disorders ,Aged - Abstract
This study aimed at investigating the clinical usefulness of the Mental Deterioration Battery (MDB) in the neuropsychological diagnosis and characterization of the dementia syndrome. In this paper, we report: (a) normative data for various test scores derived from the analysis of performance of 340 normal subjects living in urban areas; (b) an evaluation of the reliability of the single tests and of the battery as a whole in differentiating normal subjects from patients affected by cognitive deterioration derived from the analysis of performance of 130 normal subjects living in rural areas and 134 patients affected by probable Alzheimer's dementia; (c) a cluster analysis of performances of the 340 normal subjects in the standardization group to evaluate possible criteria of homogeneity according to which the various MDB scores tend to aggregate; (d) an analysis of performance profiles of 183 patients with right monohemispheric focal lesions, 159 patients with left unilateral lesions with aphasia and 131 left-lesioned nonaphasic patients to evaluate the specificity of the single tests of the battery in documenting a selective impairment of one of the two cerebral hemispheres. Results confirm the reliability of the MBD in discriminating between normal and demented patients and provide indications for use of the battery in differentiating qualitative patterns of cognitive impairment.
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- 1996
11. Brain activity during intra- and cross-modal priming: New empirical data and review of the literature
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Carlesimo, G, Turriziani, P, Paulesu, E, Gorini, A, Caltagirone, C, Fazio, F, Perani, D, Carlesimo, GA, Perani, D., PAULESU, ERALDO, FAZIO, FERRUCCIO, Carlesimo, G, Turriziani, P, Paulesu, E, Gorini, A, Caltagirone, C, Fazio, F, Perani, D, Carlesimo, GA, Perani, D., PAULESU, ERALDO, and FAZIO, FERRUCCIO
- Abstract
A positron emission tomography (PET) study was conducted to investigate the neurofunctional correlate of auditory within-modality and auditory-to-visual cross-modality stem completion priming. Compared to the auditory-to-auditory priming condition, cross-modality priming was associated with a significantly larger regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) decrease at the boundary between left inferior temporal and fusiform gyri, brain regions previously associated with modality independent lexical retrieval and reading. Instead, within-modality auditory priming was associated with a bilateral pattern of prefrontal rCBF increase. This was likely the expression of more efficient access to output lexical representations and involuntary retrieval of the recent episode during which the just generated word had been encountered.
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- 2004
12. Hippocampal abnormalities and memory deficits in Parkinson disease: A multimodal imaging study.
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Carlesimo GA, Piras F, Assogna F, Pontieri FE, Caltagirone C, and Spalletta G
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- 2012
- Full Text
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13. Hippocampal mean diffusivity and memory in healthy elderly individuals: a cross-sectional study.
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Carlesimo GA, Cherubini A, Caltagirone C, and Spalletta G
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- 2010
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14. Primacy and recency effects in immediate free recall of sequences of spatial positions.
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Bonanni R, Pasqualetti P, Caltagirone C, and Carlesimo GA
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- 2007
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15. Evidence from two genetic syndromes for the independence of spatial and visual working memory.
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Vicari S, Bellucci S, and Carlesimo GA
- Abstract
This study aimed at investigating the possible dissociation between visual-object and visual-spatial working memory (WM) in individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) and Down syndrome (DS). Four study groups were included: WS group (10 males, 5 females) with a mean chronological age (CA) of 19 years 8 months (SD 6y 1mo) and a mean mental age (MA)of 6 years 11 months (SD 1y 5mo); WS comparison group (7 males, 8 females) comprised of typically developing children with a mean CA of 6 years 10 months (SD 10mo) and a mean MA of 6 years 11 months (SD 8mo)matched as a group with the participants with WS on the basis of mental age; DS group (11 males, 7 females) with a mean CA of 15 years 10 months (SD 5y 8mo) and a mean MA of 5 years 2 months (SD 8mo); and DS comparison group (10 males, 8 females) with a mean CA of 5 years and 1 month (SD 7mo)and a mean MA of 5 years 2 months (SD 8mo) selected to match the DS group on the basis of mental age. They were all administered tests that explored visual perception (Visual Perception Test - Subtest 4 and Line Orientation tests), visual imagery (imaging the colour of objects and the tail length of well-known animals), spatial imagery (mental rotation of visually presented or verbally evoked objects), and WM for visual-object and visual-spatial information. Individuals with WS exhibited specific difficulties in the visual-spatial, but not the visual-object, WM task. Instead, people with DS showed reduced performance in both tests. However, whereas the observed deficit in individuals with DS persisted when perceptual abilities were taken into account, the deficit in individuals with DS was compensated when their scores were adjusted for performance on perceptual tasks. These results support the hypothesis of a dissociation within the sketch-pad slave system in the WM model and reinforce the view of intellectual disability as a non-unitary condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2006
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16. Parkinsonian Patients with Deficits in the Dysexecutive Spectrum are Impaired on Theory of Mind Tasks
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Alberto Costa, Antonella Peppe, Matteo Martini, Katia Coletta, Massimiliano Oliveri, Carlo Caltagirone, Giovanni A. Carlesimo, Costa, A, Peppe, A, Martini, M, Coletta, K, Oliveri, M, Caltagirone, C, and Carlesimo, GA
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Research Report ,Male ,Settore M-PSI/02 - Psicobiologia E Psicologia Fisiologica ,parkinson, theory of mind ,Theory of Mind ,Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,Parkinson Disease ,Recognition, Psychology ,General Medicine ,Middle Aged ,Neuropsychological Tests ,executive functions ,Executive Function ,Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology ,Neurology ,Case-Control Studies ,Parkinson’s disease ,Humans ,Settore MED/26 - Neurologia ,Female ,Neurology (clinical) ,Cognition Disorders ,RC321-571 - Abstract
Understanding the mental states of others entails a number of cognitive processes known as Theory of Mind (ToM). A relationship between ToM deficits and executive disorders has been hypothesized in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). The present study was aimed at investigating the effect of dysexecutive deficits on ToM abilities in PD patients without dementia. Participants included 30 PD patients and 30 healthy subjects (HC). PD patients were divided into two groups according to their executive test performance: patients with poor (dysexecutive group; n = 15) and normal (executively unimpaired group; n = 15) performance. All participants were administered faux pas recognition written stories. The dysexecutive PD patients performed less accurately than both HC and executively unimpaired PD individuals on all faux pas story questions (p < 0.05); the executively unimpaired PD group performed as accurately as the HC group on the ToM tasks. Results of the study clearly demonstrate that PD is not tout court associated with ToM impairments and that these may occur in PD patients as a function of the degree of their executive impairment. Our findings also indirectly confirm previous data on the role of the prefrontal regions in mediating ToM capacities.
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- 2013
17. Impaired reproduction of second but not millisecond time intervals in Parkinson's disease
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Alberto Costa, Giacomo Koch, Giovanni Augusto Carlesimo, Livia Brusa, Ilaria Gatto, Emanuele Lo Gerfo, Silvia Salerno, Massimiliano Oliveri, Carlo Caltagirone, Antonella Peppe, Sara Torriero, KOCH G, COSTA A, BRUSA L, PEPPE A, GATTO I, TORRIERO S, GERFO EL, SALERNO S, OLIVERI M, CARLESIMO GA, CALTAGIRONE C, Koch, G, Costa, A, Brusa, L, Peppe, A, Gatto, I, Torriero, S, LO GERFO, E, Salerno, S, Oliveri, M, Carlesimo, G, and Caltagirone, C
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Male ,Time perception ,Parkinson's disease ,Basal ganglia ,Dopamine ,Memory ,Neuropsychological Tests ,Audiology ,Behavioral neuroscience ,Antiparkinson Agents ,Behavioral Neuroscience ,Cognition ,Attention ,BRAIN ,Tomography ,Depression ,Humans ,Tomography, X-Ray Computed ,Time Perception ,Aged ,Memory Disorders ,Psychiatric Status Rating Scales ,Parkinson Disease ,Psychomotor Performance ,Middle Aged ,Female ,Reaction Time ,Millisecond ,Psychiatric Status Rating Scale ,TIME ,X-Ray Computed ,Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology ,Antiparkinson Agent ,Neuropsychological Test ,Settore MED/26 - Neurologia ,Psychology ,Human ,Memory Disorder ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Elementary cognitive task ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Cognitive neuroscience ,NO ,medicine ,Settore M-PSI/02 - Psicobiologia E Psicologia Fisiologica ,Memoria ,Finger tapping ,PARKINSON ,Neuroscience - Abstract
The basal ganglia have been associated with temporal processing in ranges of milliseconds and seconds. However, results from PD patient studies are elusive. Time perception in these patients has been tested with different approaches including repetitive movement tasks (i.e. finger tapping) and cognitive tasks (i.e. time reproduction), and both abnormal and normal performances have been reported for different time intervals. Furthermore, when PD patients were required to learn two target durations in the same session when they were off medication, they overestimated the short duration and underestimated the long duration in the seconds range. This pattern of temporal accuracy was described as a "migration effect" and was interpreted as a dysfunctional representation of memory for time (Malapani, C., Rakitin, B. C., Levy, R., Meck, W. H., Deweer, B., Dubois, B., et al. (1998). Coupled temporal memories in Parkinson's disease: A dopamine-related dysfunction. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 10, 316-331). Here, we controlled the emergence of similar behaviour also during millisecond time processing in PD patients. A time reproduction task was employed in which subjects were required to estimate intervals in millisecond (500 ms) and few second (2000 ms) ranges. In the first experiment, these intervals were tested in the same session to verify whether the migration effect was present also between time intervals in different millisecond and few second ranges. In a second experiment, they were not intermingled but were tested in two separate sessions to verify whether abnormalities depended on a selective perceptual deficit of the time intervals tested (i.e. millisecond or second ranges). All experiments were performed in both off and on therapy conditions. Our results demonstrated that PD patients showed no deficits in time estimation for time intervals in either the millisecond or few second range when the different time intervals were tested in separate sessions. This negative finding was obtained in both on and off conditions. However, when the different ranges were tested in the same session, we found that PD patients were impaired selectively for time intervals in the seconds range. Our data seem to indicate that time processing in PD patients for time intervals spanning up to 2 s is unimpaired and that abnormalities in such temporal scale may emerge only when patients have to deal with different durations, when timing involves further cognitive processes such as memory and attention. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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- 2008
18. The Right Frontopolar Cortex Is Involved in Visual-Spatial Prospective Memory
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Alberto C.S. Costa, Giovanni Augusto Carlesimo, Carlo Caltagirone, Giacomo Koch, Francesco Barban, Massimiliano Oliveri, Sonia Bonnì, Costa, A, Oliveri, M, Barban, F, Bonnì, S, Koch, G, Caltagirone, C, and Carlesimo, GA
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Male ,medicine.medical_treatment ,lcsh:Medicine ,Audiology ,Neuropsychological Tests ,Social and Behavioral Sciences ,Functional Laterality ,Diagnostic Radiology ,Prospective memory ,Psychology ,Prefrontal cortex ,lcsh:Science ,Multidisciplinary ,Cognitive Neurology ,Cognition ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ,Frontal Lobe ,Neurology ,Visual Perception ,Medicine ,Settore MED/26 - Neurologia ,Female ,Episodic ,Radiology ,Brodmann area ,Research Article ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Memory, Episodic ,Biology ,memory, frontal cortex ,Lateralization of brain function ,NO ,Young Adult ,Memory ,Neuropsychology ,medicine ,Reaction Time ,Humans ,Recall ,Settore M-PSI/02 - Psicobiologia E Psicologia Fisiologica ,Working memory ,lcsh:R ,Cognitive Psychology ,Transcranial magnetic stimulation ,Space Perception ,lcsh:Q ,Neuroscience - Abstract
The involvement of frontopolar cortex in mediating prospective memory processes has been evidenced by various studies, mainly by means of neuroimaging techniques. Recently, one transcranial magnetic stimulation study documented that transient inhibition of left Brodmann Area (BA) 10 impaired verbal prospective memory. This result raises the issue of whether the BA 10 involvement in prospective memory functioning may be modulated by the physical characteristics of the stimuli used. The present study aimed to investigate the role of the frontopolar cortex in visual-spatial PM by means of the application of inhibitory theta-burst stimulation. Twelve volunteers were evaluated after inhibitory theta-burst stimulation over left BA 10, right BA10 and CZ (control condition). In the prospective memory procedure, sequences of four spatial positions (black squares) each were presented. During the inter-sequence delay, subjects had to reproduce the sequence in the observed order (ongoing task forward) or the reverse order (backward). At the occurrence of a target position, subjects had to press a key on the keyboard (prospective memory score). Recall and recognition of the target positions were also tested. We found that prospective memory accuracy was lower after theta-burst stimulation over right BA10 than CZ (p
- Published
- 2013
19. Keeping memory for intentions: A cTBS investigation of the frontopolar cortex
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Giovanni Augusto Carlesimo, Alberto Costa, Francesco Barban, Giacomo Koch, Silvia Salerno, Emanuele Lo Gerfo, Carlo Caltagirone, Sara Torriero, Massimiliano Oliveri, Costa, A, Oliveri, M, Barban, F, Torriero, S, Salerno, S, LO GERFO, E, Koch, G, Caltagirone, C, Carlesimo, G, Lo Gerfo, E, and Carlesimo, GA
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Male ,medicine.medical_specialty ,medicine.medical_treatment ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,CTBS ,tm ,prospective remembering ,Prefrontal Cortex ,Brodmann area 10 ,Intention ,Audiology ,Cognitive neuroscience ,NO ,Young Adult ,Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience ,Memory ,Prospective memory ,medicine ,Reaction Time ,Humans ,delayed intentions ,Theta Rhythm ,Prefrontal cortex ,Recall ,frontal cortex ,Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ,Female ,Transcranial magnetic stimulation ,prefrontal regions ,transcranial magnetic stimulation ,prefrontal region ,Settore MED/26 - Neurologia ,delayed intention ,Psychology ,Neuroscience ,Brodmann area ,Human - Abstract
The present study aimed to investigate the role of frontopolar cortex in prospective memory (PM) by means of inhibitory theta-burst stimulation (cTBS). "Experiment 1"-8 volunteers were evaluated after inhibitory cTBS over left Brodmann area (BA) 10, right BA10, and Cz. In the PM procedure, sequences of 4 words each were presented. During the intersequence delay, subjects had to repeat the sequence in the observed order (ongoing task forward) or in the reverse order (backward). At the occurrence of a target word, subjects had to press a key on the keyboard (PM task). Recall and recognition of the target words were also tested. PM accuracy was lower after cTBS over left BA10 compared with Cz (P = 0.012), whereas it was comparable in right BA10 and Cz conditions. No other significant differences between the 3 conditions were found. "Experiment 2"-8 subjects were administered the same experimental PM procedure as above after inhibitory cTBS over left BA46 and Cz. In this case, none of the tested effects were significant. Our findings corroborate the hypothesis that within the prefrontal cortex, the left BA10 is specifically involved in the mediation of processes related to the execution of delayed intentions.
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- 2011
20. Recollection and familiarity in hippocampal amnesia
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Patrizia Turriziani, Lucia Fadda, Carlo Caltagirone, Laura Serra, Giovanni Augusto Carlesimo, TURRIZIANI P, SERRA L, FADDA L, CALTAGIRONE C, and CARLESIMO GA
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Adult ,Male ,Dissociation (neuropsychology) ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Amnesia ,Hippocampal formation ,Recognition (Psychology) ,Pattern Recognition ,Hippocampus ,Pattern Recognition, Visual ,Humans ,Brain Damage, Chronic ,Middle Aged ,Mental Recall ,Temporal lobe ,Perirhinal cortex ,medicine ,Brain Damage ,Chronic ,Recognition memory ,Recall ,Cognition ,Recognition, Psychology ,amnesia, recognition memory, recollection, familiarity, hippocampus ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Settore MED/26 - Neurologia ,medicine.symptom ,Psychology ,Visual ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
Currently, there is a general agreement that two distinct cognitive operations, recollection and familiarity, contribute to performance on recognition memory tests. However, there is a controversy about whether recollection and familiarity reflect different memory processes, mediated by distinct neural substrates (dual-process models), or whether they are the expression of memory traces of different strength in the context of a unitary declarative memory system (unitary-strength models). Critical in this debate is the status of recognition memory in hippocampal amnesia and, in particular, whether the various structures in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) contribute differentially to the recollection and familiarity components of recognition. The present study aimed to explore the relative contribution of recollection and familiarity to recognition of words that had been previously read or that had been previously generated in a group of severely amnesic patients with cerebral damage restricted to the hippocampus. A convergent pattern of results emerged when we used a subjective-based (remember/know; R/K) and an objective-based (process dissociation procedure; PDP) methods to estimate the contribution of recollection and familiarity to recognition performance. In both PDP and R/K procedures, healthy controls disclosed significantly higher recollection estimates for words that had been anagrammed than for words that had been read. Amnesic patients'' recollection scores were not different for words that had been generated or that had been read, and the recollection estimate for words that had been generated was significantly reduced as compared to the group of healthy controls. For familiarity, both healthy controls and amnesic patients recognized as familiar more words that had been generated than words that had been read, and there was no difference between the two groups. These data support the hypothesis of a specific role of the hippocampus in recollection processes and suggest that other components of the MTL (e.g., perirhinal cortex) may be more involved in the process of familiarity.
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- 2008
21. Recognition memory and prefrontal cortex: Dissociating recollection and familiarity processes using rTMS
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Silvia Salerno, Giovanni Augusto Carlesimo, Massimiliano Oliveri, Patrizia Turriziani, Carlo Caltagirone, Floriana Costanzo, Giacomo Koch, TURRIZIANI P, OLIVERI M, SALERNO S, COSTANZO F, KOCH G, CALTAGIRONE C, and CARLESIMO GA
- Subjects
Adult ,Male ,medicine.medical_treatment ,Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,Context (language use) ,Recognition (Psychology) ,behavioral disciplines and activities ,Prefrontal cortex ,NO ,Recognition memory ,Judgment ,Recollection ,Encoding (memory) ,mental disorders ,medicine ,Humans ,Memory ,Mental Recall ,Prefrontal Cortex ,Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ,Female ,TMS ,MEMORY ,Left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex ,Recall ,Settore M-PSI/02 - Psicobiologia E Psicologia Fisiologica ,Healthy subjects ,Recognition, Psychology ,General Medicine ,Familiarity ,Transcranial magnetic stimulation ,Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology ,nervous system ,Neurology ,Settore MED/26 - Neurologia ,Neurology (clinical) ,Psychology ,psychological phenomena and processes ,Research Article ,RC321-571 ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
Recognition memory can be supported by both the assessment of the familiarity of an item and by the recollection of the context in which an item was encountered. The neural substrates of these memory processes are controversial. To address these issues we applied repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the right and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) of healthy subjects performing a remember/know task. rTMS disrupted familiarity judgments when applied before encoding of stimuli over both right and left DLPFC. rTMS disrupted recollection when applied before encoding of stimuli over the right DLPFC. These findings suggest that the DLPFC plays a critical role in recognition memory based on familiarity as well as recollection.
- Published
- 2008
22. Integration of cognitive allocentric information in visuospatial short-term memory through the hippocampus
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Giacomo Koch, Mauro Carrozzo, Giovanni Augusto Carlesimo, Carlo Caltagirone, Francesco Lacquaniti, Patrizia Turriziani, CARROZZO M, KOCH G, TURRIZIANI P, CALTAGIRONE C, CARLESIMO GA, and LACQUANITI F
- Subjects
Adult ,Male ,Memory buffer register ,Time Factors ,Amnesic ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Short-term memory ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,Hippocampus ,Humans ,Cognition ,Brain Mapping ,Memory, Short-Term ,Mental Processes ,Space Perception ,Middle Aged ,Psychomotor Performance ,Visual Perception ,Amnesia ,Female ,Spatial memory ,NO ,Visuomotor ,Memory ,Encoding (memory) ,Spatial ,Association (psychology) ,Set (psychology) ,Settore M-PSI/02 - Psicobiologia E Psicologia Fisiologica ,Covert ,Pointing ,Short-Term ,Mental representation ,Settore MED/26 - Neurologia ,Psychology ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
Visuospatial short-term memory relies on a widely distributed neocortical network: some areas support the encoding process of the visually acquired spatial information, whereas other ares are more involved in the active maintenance of the encoded information. Recently, in a pointing to remembered targets task, it has been shown in healthy subjects that, for memory delays of 5 s, spatial errors are affected also by cognitive allocentric information, i.e., covert spatial information derived from a pure mental representation. We tested the effect of a lesion of the hippocampus on the accuracy of pointing movements toward remembered targets, with memory delays falling in the 0.5-30 s range. The spatial distributions of the two target sets we used (line and left-right) allowed the exploitation of cognitive allocentric spatial information: both sets were in the frontal plane, the line one being composed by eleven points distributed uniformly along a virtual line tilted 45 degrees away from the vertical, whereas the left-right set was composed by two workspaces symmetrically distributed at the extremes of a horizontal virtual line. We have found a significant difference between the performance of three hippocampal amnesic subjects and a group of normal controls for delays equal to or longer than 15 s, the difference being along the allocentric axis, i.e., the direction of the virtual line defined by the target set. On this basis we suggest that the hippocampal formation may enhance the spatial information processed within short-term memory with cognitive allocentric information. The association that may be operated through the neocortical-hippocampal loop of the newly acquired spatial information with well established spatial cognitive items could affect the precision of the short-term memory storage for memory delays exceeding about 15 s and might be the result of a modulation of the span of the spatial memory buffer along context-specific directions.
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- 2005
23. Recognition memory for single items and for associations in amnesic patients
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Patrizia Turriziani, Carlo Caltagirone, Giovanni Augusto Carlesimo, Lucia Fadda, TURRIZIANI, P, FADDA, L, CALTAGIRONE, C, and CARLESIMO, GA
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Adult ,Male ,Visual perception ,Dissociation (neuropsychology) ,recollection ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Amnesia ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Recognition (Psychology) ,behavioral disciplines and activities ,Hippocampus ,Association ,Behavioral Neuroscience ,amnesia ,Memory ,medicine ,Humans ,Memory disorder ,Associative property ,Recognition memory ,familiarity ,Recall ,Settore M-PSI/02 - Psicobiologia E Psicologia Fisiologica ,hippocampu ,Cognitive disorder ,Brain ,Recognition, Psychology ,Mental Recall ,Photic Stimulation ,Case-Control Studies ,Middle Aged ,Visual Perception ,Female ,medicine.disease ,Settore MED/26 - Neurologia ,medicine.symptom ,Psychology ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
Recognition memory performance reflects two distinct processes or types of memory referred to as recollection and familiarity. According to theoretical claims about the two types of memory, single item and associative recognition tasks can be used as an experimental method to distinguish recollection and familiarity processes. Associative recognition decisions can be used as an index of recollection while memory for single items is mostly based on familiarity judgement. We employed this procedure to examine a possible dissociation in the memory performance of amnesic patients between spared single item and impaired associative recognition. Twelve amnesic patients, six with damage confined to the hippocampus proper, and six with damage elsewhere in the brain, were recruited for the present study. The findings showed that hippocampal amnesics exhibit relative sparing of single item learning but are consistently deficient in the learning of all kinds of between-item associations. These results are consistent with the view that hippocampal formation contributes differently to declarative tasks that require recollective or familiarity processes.
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- 2004
24. Brain activity during intra- and cross-modal priming: new empirical data and review of the literature
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Giovanni Augusto Carlesimo, Eraldo Paulesu, Daniela Perani, Patrizia Turriziani, Alessandra Gorini, Carlo Caltagirone, F. Fazio, CARLESIMO GA, TURRIZIANI P, PAULESU E, GORINI A, CALTAGIRONE C, FAZIO F, PERANI D, Carlesimo, G, Turriziani, P, Paulesu, E, Gorini, A, Caltagirone, C, Fazio, F, Perani, D, Carlesimo, G. A., Turriziani, P., Paulesu, E., Gorini, A., Caltagirone, C., Fazio, F., and Perani, DANIELA FELICITA L.
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Adult ,Male ,Empirical data ,genetic structures ,Brain activity and meditation ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Central nervous system ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Behavioral Neuroscience ,Memory ,otorhinolaryngologic diseases ,medicine ,Humans ,Tomography ,Cerebral Cortex ,medicine.diagnostic_test ,Settore M-PSI/02 - Psicobiologia E Psicologia Fisiologica ,Memoria ,Priming, Stem completion, Memory, PET ,Brain ,Cognition ,Reading ,Auditory Perception ,Photic Stimulation ,Speech Perception ,Cues ,Tomography, Emission-Computed ,Acoustic Stimulation ,Visual Perception ,PET ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Cerebral blood flow ,Priming ,Positron emission tomography ,Stem completion ,Settore MED/26 - Neurologia ,Emission-Computed ,Psychology ,Priming (psychology) ,Neuroscience ,psychological phenomena and processes - Abstract
A positron emission tomography (PET) study was conducted to investigate the neurofunctional correlate of auditory within-modality and auditory-to-visual cross-modality stem completion priming. Compared to the auditory-to-auditory priming condition, cross-modality priming was associated with a significantly larger regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) decrease at the boundary between left inferior temporal and fusiform gyri, brain regions previously associated with modality independent lexical retrieval and reading. Instead, within-modality auditory priming was associated with a bilateral pattern of prefrontal rCBF increase. This was likely the expression of more efficient access to output lexical representations and involuntary retrieval of the recent episode during which the just generated word had been encountered.
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- 2004
25. rTMS evidence of different delay and decision processes in a fronto-parietal neuronal network activated during spatial working memory
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Carlo Caltagirone, Massimiliano Oliveri, Giovanni Augusto Carlesimo, Giacomo Koch, Patrizia Turriziani, Sara Torriero, KOCH G, OLIVERI M, TORRIERO S, CARLESIMO GA, TURRIZIANI P, and CALTAGIRONE C
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Male ,medicine.medical_treatment ,Spatial memory ,Parietal Lobe ,rTMS ,Prefrontal cortex ,Brain Mapping ,rTMS, Fronto-parietal neuronal network, Spatial working memory ,Motor Cortex ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,Frontal Lobe ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Memory, Short-Term ,Neurology ,Pattern Recognition, Visual ,Settore MED/26 - Neurologia ,Female ,Visual ,Psychology ,psychological phenomena and processes ,Cognitive psychology ,Magnetics ,Orientation ,Humans ,Serial Learning ,Prefrontal Cortex ,Decision Making ,Nerve Net ,Adult ,Reaction Time ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Spatial working memory ,Posterior parietal cortex ,Pattern Recognition ,behavioral disciplines and activities ,NO ,Premotor cortex ,Neuroimaging ,Memory ,mental disorders ,Biological neural network ,medicine ,Fronto-parietal neuronal network ,Settore M-PSI/02 - Psicobiologia E Psicologia Fisiologica ,Transcranial magnetic stimulation ,Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex ,Short-Term ,nervous system ,Neuroscience - Abstract
The existence of a specific and widely distributed network for spatial working memory (WM) in humans, involving the posterior parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex, is supported by a number of neuroimaging studies. We used a repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) approach to investigate the temporal dynamics and the reciprocal interactions of the different areas of the parieto-frontal network in normal subjects performing a spatial WM task, with the aim to compare neural activity of the different areas in the delay and decision phases of the task. Trains of rTMS at 25 Hz were delivered over the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), the premotor cortex (SFG) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) of the right hemisphere alternatively during the two phases. We found a pattern of interference of TMS during the delay phase for both parietal and DLPFC sites of stimulation, with no effect observed for the SFG site. When rTMS trains were applied during the decision phase, an interference was observed selectively for DLPFC. The present study shows the existence of a parallel processing in the parieto-frontal network of spatial WM during the delay phase. Furthermore, it provides new evidence of the critical role of the DLPFC during both the delay and the decision phases. We suggest that in DLPFC, two different networks coexist: A local neural network subserving the decisional processes and a second neural population functionally interconnected with the PPC and activated when a certain spatial information has to be kept in memory, available to use.
- Published
- 2003
26. Forgetting rate for the familiarity and recollection components of recognition in amnestic mild cognitive impairment: A longitudinal study.
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De Simone MS, Lombardi MG, De Tollis M, Perri R, Fadda L, Caltagirone C, and Carlesimo GA
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- Humans, Male, Female, Aged, Longitudinal Studies, Alzheimer Disease physiopathology, Alzheimer Disease complications, Amnesia physiopathology, Neuropsychological Tests, Middle Aged, Disease Progression, Aged, 80 and over, Memory Disorders physiopathology, Memory Disorders etiology, Memory Disorders diagnosis, Cognitive Dysfunction physiopathology, Cognitive Dysfunction diagnosis, Cognitive Dysfunction etiology, Recognition, Psychology physiology, Mental Recall physiology
- Abstract
Here we aimed to investigate the rate of forgetting of the familiarity and recollection components of recognition in patients at the onset of medial temporal lobe (MTL) pathology and destined to convert to Alzheimer's disease (AD). For this purpose, we conducted a longitudinal study of 13 patients who were diagnosed with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (a-MCI) at the first assessment and followed-up for 3 years. During this time, five patients converted to AD and eight remained in a stable condition of cognitive impairment. A group of 15 healthy subjects were enrolled as the control group (HC). In order to separately quantify the contribution of recollection and familiarity to recognition memory performance, the experimental sample was submitted to a modified version of Huppert and Piercy's procedure that included a Remember/Know paradigm. Data demonstrated that both stable and converter a-MCI patients forgot memory traces relative to the familiarity components of recognition at the same rate as HC. Conversely, converter a-MCI patients showed accelerated long-term forgetting specifically for the recollection component of recognition compared to stable a-MCI and HC. This is the first empirical demonstration that familiarity and recollection components of declarative memory are subject to different rates of forgetting in a-MCI patients as a function of their longitudinal clinical outcome. Our finding of accelerated long-term forgetting of the recollection component of recognition disclosed by converter a-MCI patients suggests that atrophy in the MTL not only interferes with the storage aspects but also disrupts the consolidation of memory traces.
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- 2024
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27. Exploring the neural and behavioral correlates of cognitive telerehabilitation in mild cognitive impairment with three distinct approaches.
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Caminiti SP, Bernini S, Bottiroli S, Mitolo M, Manca R, Grillo V, Avenali M, De Icco R, Capellari S, Carlesimo GA, Venneri A, and Tassorelli C
- Abstract
Background: Currently, the impact of drug therapies on neurodegenerative conditions is limited. Therefore, there is a strong clinical interest in non-pharmacological interventions aimed at preserving functionality, delaying disease progression, reducing disability, and improving quality of life for both patients and their caregivers. This longitudinal multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) applies three innovative cognitive telerehabilitation (TR) methods to evaluate their impact on brain functional connectivity reconfigurations and on the overall level of cognitive and everyday functions., Methods: We will include 110 participants with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Fifty-five participants will be randomly assigned to the intervention group who will receive cognitive TR via three approaches, namely: (a) Network-based Cognitive Training (NBCT), (b) Home-based Cognitive Rehabilitation (HomeCoRe), or (c) Semantic Memory Rehabilitation Training (SMRT). The control group ( n = 55) will receive an unstructured home-based cognitive stimulation. The rehabilitative program will last either 4 (NBTC) or 6 weeks (HomeCoRe and SMRT), and the control condition will be adapted to each TR intervention. The effects of TR will be tested in terms of Δ connectivity change, obtained from high-density electroencephalogram (HD-EEG) or functional magnetic resonance imaging at rest (rs-fMRI), acquired before (T0) and after (T1) the intervention. All participants will undergo a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment at four time-points: baseline (T0), within 2 weeks (T1), and after 6 (T2) and 12 months (T3) from the end of TR., Discussion: The results of this RCT will identify a potential association between improvement in performance induced by individual cognitive TR approaches and modulation of resting-state brain connectivity. The knowledge gained with this study might foster the development of novel TR approaches underpinned by established neural mechanisms to be validated and implemented in clinical practice. Clinical trial registration: [https://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT06278818], identifier [NCT06278818]., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research will be conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision., (Copyright © 2024 Caminiti, Bernini, Bottiroli, Mitolo, Manca, Grillo, Avenali, De Icco, Capellari, Carlesimo, Venneri and Tassorelli.)
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- 2024
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28. Subjective clustering in patients with fronto-temporal dementia.
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Perri R, Fadda L, Caltagirone C, and Carlesimo GA
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- Humans, Neuropsychological Tests, Mental Recall physiology, Memory Disorders, Alzheimer Disease, Memory, Episodic, Frontotemporal Dementia complications
- Abstract
In the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) memory deficits have been traditionally considered as due to difficulties in encoding/retrieval frontal strategies. However, the frontal origin of memory deficits in bvFTD has been questioned and hippocampal dysfunction has been also proposed. Here we analyzed bvFTD patients' proficiency in subjectively organizing memories without an external criterion. Twenty bvFTD patients and 20 healthy individuals were assessed with memory and executive tasks. The ability to subjectively organize memories in the immediate recall of a 15 unrelated word list was measured by calculating the index of subjective clustering (ISC) based on the constancies in response order across the five consecutive free recall trials. Results revealed reduced ISC in bvFTD patients with respect to normal controls. In the bvFTD group, the ISC score correlated with the Corsi span backward score and the number of categories achieved on the Modified Card Sorting Test. The bvFTD patients' reduced ISC and its correlation with executive performance suggest that executive deficits underlie their defective strategic organization of memories. However, as ISC did not predict memory accuracy in these patients, the memory deficit may not be the mere expression of their executive difficulties.
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- 2024
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29. The Role of the Anterior Thalamic Nuclei in the Genesis of Memory Disorders in Alzheimer's Disease: An Exploratory Study.
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De Simone MS, Spalletta G, Vecchio D, Bassi A, Carlesimo GA, and Piras F
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- Humans, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Memory Disorders diagnostic imaging, Memory Disorders etiology, Thalamic Nuclei, Anterior Thalamic Nuclei diagnostic imaging, Alzheimer Disease complications, Alzheimer Disease diagnostic imaging
- Abstract
Background: Increasing evidence is demonstrating that degeneration of specific thalamic nuclei, in addition to the hippocampus, may occur in Alzheimer's disease (AD) from the prodromal stage (mild cognitive impairment - MCI) and contribute to memory impairment., Objective: Here, we evaluated the presence of macro and micro structural alterations at the level of the anterior thalamic nuclei (ATN) and medio-dorsal thalamic nuclei (MDTN) in AD and amnestic MCI (aMCI) and the possible relationship between such changes and the severity of memory impairment., Methods: For this purpose, a sample of 50 patients with aMCI, 50 with AD, and 50 age- and education-matched healthy controls (HC) were submitted to a 3-T MRI protocol with whole-brain T1-weighted and diffusion tensor imaging and a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment., Results: At macro-structural level, both the ATN and MDTN were found significantly smaller in patients with aMCI and AD when compared to HC subjects. At micro-structural level, instead, diffusion alterations that significantly differentiated aMCI and AD patients from HC subjects were found only in the ATN, but not in the MDTN. Moreover, diffusion values of the ATN were significantly associated with poor episodic memory in the overall patients' group., Conclusions: These findings represent the first in vivo evidence of a relevant involvement of ATN in the AD-related neurodegeneration and memory profile and strengthen the importance to look beyond the hippocampus when considering neurological conditions characterized by memory decline.
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- 2024
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30. Could Accelerated Long-Term Forgetting Be a Feature of the Higher Rate of Memory Complaints Associated with Subjective Cognitive Decline? An Exploratory Study.
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Rodini M, Bonarota S, Serra L, Caltagirone C, and Carlesimo GA
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- Humans, Male, Female, Aged, Middle Aged, Mental Recall physiology, Brain diagnostic imaging, Cognitive Dysfunction psychology, Cognitive Dysfunction diagnostic imaging, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Neuropsychological Tests, Memory Disorders psychology
- Abstract
Background: Recently, subjective cognitive decline (SCD) was proposed as an early risk factor for future Alzheimer's disease (AD)., Objective: In this study, we investigated whether accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF), assessed with extended testing intervals than those adopted in clinical practice, might be a cognitive feature of SCD. Using an explorative MRI analysis of the SCD sample, we attempted to investigate the areas most likely involved in the ALF pattern., Methods: We recruited 31 individuals with SCD from our memory clinic and subdivided them based on their rate of memory complaints into mild SCDs (n = 18) and severe SCDs (n = 13). A long-term forgetting procedure, involving the recall of verbal and visuo-spatial material at four testing delays (i.e., immediate, 30 min, 24 h, and 7 days post-encoding) was used to compare the two sub-groups of SCDs with a healthy control group (HC; n = 16)., Results: No significant between-group difference was found on the standard neuropsychological tests, nor in the immediate and 30 min recall of the experimental procedure. By contrast, on the verbal test severe SCDs forgot significantly more than HCs in the prolonged intervals (i.e., 24 h and 7 days), with the greatest decline between 30 min and 24 h. Finally, in the whole SCD sample, we found significant associations between functional connectivity values within some cortical networks involved in memory (default mode network, salience network, and fronto-parietal network) and verbal long-term measures., Conclusions: Our preliminary findings suggest that long-term forgetting procedures could be a sensitive neuropsychological tool for detecting memory concerns in SCDs, contributing to early AD detection.
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- 2024
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31. The effectiveness of an immersive virtual reality and telemedicine-based cognitive intervention on prospective memory in Parkinson's disease patients with mild cognitive impairment and healthy aged individuals: design and preliminary baseline results of a placebo-controlled study.
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De Simone MS, Costa A, Tieri G, Taglieri S, Cona G, Fiorenzato E, Carlesimo GA, Caltagirone C, and Zabberoni S
- Abstract
Introduction: Prospective memory (PM) impairments have been extensively documented in individuals with Parkinson's disease associated with mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI) and in those with healthy aging. Considering how PM failure decreases individuals' quality of life and functional independence in the activities of daily living, training to enhance this ability could be a prior target of intervention., Objective: Here, we aimed to present the study protocol and preliminary results of a novel immersive virtual reality (IVR) and telemedicine-based (TM) cognitive intervention focused on executive abilities (i.e., planning, shifting, and updating) to improve PM functioning in PD-MCI patients and healthy elderly individuals., Methods: Outcome measures, collected before, immediately after and 2 months after the intervention, included: (1) pre-post training changes in objective cognitive functioning, evaluated with tests assessing executive functions and PM; (2) pre-post training changes in subjective perception of memory functioning, psychiatric symptoms, autonomy in daily living and quality of life, evaluated using the appropriate scales; (3) usability, feasibility and users' compliance with the proposed IVR and telemedicine program. The efficacy of this intervention compared to an active control condition is currently being evaluated in a randomized, double-blind controlled trial, which will be conducted on 30 eligible PD-MCI patients and 30 older adults., Results: Preliminary results concerning between-group comparisons of demographic and neuropsychological screening data show a good balance among the intervention groups considered in this study. The results also suggest good levels of usability, feasibility and acceptability, thus supporting the notion that our intervention can be used to promote cognitive functioning, even in people with cognitive decline., Conclusion: Considering the relatively low costs and easy accessibility to this program, it could prove valuable in primary prevention initiatives and early cognitive rehabilitation for dementia risk reduction., Competing Interests: MS, AC, GT, ST, GAC, CC, and SZ were employed by IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision., (Copyright © 2023 De Simone, Costa, Tieri, Taglieri, Cona, Fiorenzato, Carlesimo, Caltagirone and Zabberoni.)
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- 2023
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32. Special issue on "Novel neuropsychological instruments for the prodromal and preclinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease".
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Carlesimo GA and De Simone MS
- Subjects
- Humans, Aging, Neuroimaging, Neuropsychological Tests, Alzheimer Disease diagnosis, Cognitive Dysfunction
- Abstract
Dementia is one of the most challenging health and social emergencies today. It affects more than 55 million people worldwide with epidemiological projections of reaching 140 million people in 2050. Diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD), the clinical-pathological entity responsible for 60%-70% of all dementia cases, rests currently on the demonstration of cerebrospinal fluid or neuroimaging biomarkers, as a proxy of AD cortical neuropathology. In this context, the role of neuropsychological assessment, as a rapid and noninvasive tool able to accurately detect the early cognitive alterations and eventually promote the search for specific biological markers of AD, has become a matter of intense investigation and theoretical debate. This special issue includes original studies as well as literature reviews of the most current and promising approaches aimed at addressing the critical question of distinguishing cognitive decline due to preclinical or prodromal AD from decline associated with physiological aging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
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- 2023
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33. Exploring mechanisms that affect retrograde memory for public events in amnestic mild cognitive impairment: A longitudinal update.
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De Simone MS, Rodini M, De Tollis M, Caltagirone C, and Carlesimo GA
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- Humans, Disease Progression, Neuropsychological Tests, Cognitive Dysfunction psychology, Alzheimer Disease psychology
- Abstract
Here, we examined mechanisms that affect retrograde memory in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (a-MCI) as a function of longitudinal clinical outcome. 8 a-MCI who converted to Alzheimer's dementia (AD) during the subsequent 3-year follow-up (converter a-MCI) and 10 a-MCI who remained clinically stable during the same period (stable a-MCI) were compared at the baseline evaluation (i.e., when they were diagnosed as a-MCI) using a remote memory questionnaire for public events that allows disentangling the differential contribution of storage and retrieval mechanisms to performance accuracy. Results suggest that deficits in remote memory are primarily explained by impaired retrieval abilities in stable a-MCI and by impaired storage in converter-to-AD a-MCI. This distinction between retrograde amnesia due to defective trace utilisation in stable a-MCI and trace storage in converter a-MCI is consistent with the temporal unfolding of declining anterograde memory over the course of disease progression to AD., (© 2023 The British Psychological Society.)
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- 2023
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34. The diagnostic usefulness of experimental memory tasks for detecting subjective cognitive decline: Preliminary results in an Italian sample.
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De Simone MS, Rodini M, De Tollis M, Fadda L, Caltagirone C, and Carlesimo GA
- Subjects
- Humans, Neuropsychological Tests, Memory, Cognitive Dysfunction diagnosis, Cognitive Dysfunction psychology, Alzheimer Disease complications, Alzheimer Disease diagnosis, Alzheimer Disease psychology
- Abstract
Objective: Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) was recently proposed as an early risk factor for future mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease (AD). In this study, we investigated the sensitivity of novel neuropsychological testing paradigms (which have been proposed as potentially challenging tools for the identification of preclinical AD) in capturing the subtle cognitive changes leading to SCD but not objectively detected by traditional tests., Method: The performances of 18 patients with SCD and 15 healthy individuals with no worries of cognitive decline (healthy controls [HC]) was compared on demanding tasks that investigated, respectively, associative memory, memory binding, spatial pattern separation processes and semantic memory. The diagnostic utility of these tests in capturing the subtle cognitive changes associated with SCD and possible relationships with SCD-related worries were investigated., Results: No significance between-group difference was found on the standard neuropsychological tests. Conversely, the performance of patients with SCD and HC differed significantly on specific indexes derived from experimental tasks assessing face-name associative memory and spatial pattern separation. Moreover, these measures correctly classified group membership with good overall accuracy (between 79% and 82%) and were significantly associated with self-perceived memory functioning., Conclusions: Our preliminary findings suggest that specific measures derived from demanding cognitive paradigms could be sensitive neuropsychological indexes for detecting the subtle cognitive impairment associated with SCD. These observations could be useful for further refining cognitive assessment aimed at early detection of AD. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
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- 2023
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35. The dopaminergic system supports flexible and rewarding dyadic motor interactive behaviour in Parkinson's Disease.
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Era V, Candidi M, Pezzetta R, Pulcini C, D'Antonio S, Zabberoni S, Peppe A, Costa A, Taglieri S, Carlesimo GA, and Aglioti SM
- Subjects
- Humans, Antiparkinson Agents therapeutic use, Movement, Interpersonal Relations, Cues, Parkinson Disease
- Abstract
Studies indicate that the dopaminergic system (DAS) supports individual flexible behaviour. While flexibility is quintessential to effective dyadic motor interactions, whether DAS mediates adaptations of one's own motor behaviour to that of a partner is not known. Here, we asked patients with Parkinson's Disease (PD) to synchronize their grasping movements with those of a virtual partner in conditions that did (Interactive) or did not (Cued) require to predict and adapt to its actions. PD performed the task during daily antiparkinsonian treatment ('On' condition) or after drug-withdrawal ('Off' condition). A group of healthy individuals also served as control group. In the Interactive condition, PDs performed better and found the interaction more enjoyable when in 'On' than in 'Off' condition. Crucially, PD performance in the 'On' condition did not differ from that of healthy controls. This pattern of results hints at the key role of the DAS in supporting the flexible adaptation of one's own actions to the partner's during motor interactions., (© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press.)
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- 2023
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36. Accelerated long-term forgetting in neurodegenerative disorders: A systematic review of the literature.
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Rodini M, De Simone MS, Caltagirone C, and Carlesimo GA
- Subjects
- Humans, Memory Disorders etiology, Mental Recall, Neuropsychological Tests, Alzheimer Disease complications, Cognition Disorders, Epilepsy psychology
- Abstract
Accelerated Long-term Forgetting (ALF) is a memory deficit characterised by normal retention up to relatively short intervals (e.g., minutes, hours) with increased forgetting over longer periods (e.g., days, weeks). ALF is often underestimated due to a lack of common memory assessments beyond 30-60 min. The purpose of this review was to provide an overview of ALF occurrence in neurodegenerative disorders, evaluating whether it can be considered a cognitive deficit useful for diagnosing and monitoring patients. We included 19 experimental studies that investigated ALF in neurodegenerative disorders. Most papers were focused on Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia and related forms of cognitive decline (Mild Cognitive Impairment, Subjective Cognitive decline, Pre-symptomatic subjects at risk of AD dementia). The major finding of the present work concerns the presence of ALF in very early forms of cognitive decline related to AD. These findings, supporting the hypothesis that ALF is a subtle and undetected hallmark of pre-clinical AD, highlights the importance of investigating forgetting over a longer period and devising standardised measures to be included in clinical practice., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
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- 2022
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37. Articulatory suppression delays processing of abstract words: The role of inner speech.
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Fini C, Zannino GD, Orsoni M, Carlesimo GA, Benassi M, and Borghi AM
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- Humans, Language, Concept Formation, Speech
- Abstract
Compared to concrete concepts, like "book," abstract concepts expressed by words like "justice" are more detached from sensorial experiences, even though they are also grounded in sensorial modalities. Abstract concepts lack a single object as referent and are characterised by higher variability both within and across participants. According to the Word as Social Tool (WAT) proposal, owing to their complexity, abstract concepts need to be processed with the help of inner language. Inner language can namely help participants to re-explain to themselves the meaning of the word, to keep information active in working memory, and to prepare themselves to ask information from more competent people. While previous studies have demonstrated that the mouth is involved during abstract concepts' processing, both the functional role and the mechanisms underlying this involvement still need to be clarified. We report an experiment in which participants were required to evaluate whether 78 words were abstract or concrete by pressing two different pedals. During the judgement task, they were submitted, in different blocks, to a baseline, an articulatory suppression, and a manipulation condition. In the last two conditions, they had to repeat a syllable continually and to manipulate a softball with their dominant hand. Results showed that articulatory suppression slowed down the processing of abstract more than that of concrete words. Overall results confirm the WAT proposal's hypothesis that abstract concepts processing involves the mouth motor system and specifically inner speech. We discuss the implications for current theories of conceptual representation.
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- 2022
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38. Memory for public events in amnestic mild cognitive impairment: The role of hippocampus and ventro-medial prefrontal cortex.
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Serra L, De Simone MS, Fadda L, Perri R, Caltagirone C, Bozzali M, and Carlesimo GA
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- Hippocampus diagnostic imaging, Hippocampus pathology, Humans, Memory Disorders psychology, Neuropsychological Tests, Prefrontal Cortex diagnostic imaging, Cognitive Dysfunction psychology
- Abstract
Background: Current theories assume that retrograde memory deficits for semantic information in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) are temporally graded and partially sparing most remote memories. Moreover, these models assume a prevalent role of the hippocampus in early phases of memory consolidation and of the prefrontal mesial neocortical areas in permanent consolidation of traces., Purpose: To explore the relationship between hippocampus and memory accuracy for the most recent public events and between the ventro-medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and memory accuracy irrespective of the memory age, we investigated in aMCI patients the retrograde memory for public events and its relationship with grey matter volume reductions in the hippocampus and vmPFC., Methods: 18 aMCI patients and 13 healthy subjects (HS) underwent a modified version of the Famous Events questionnaire (FEq) to assess their memory performance for public events. Patients underwent 3T-MRI scanning to assess correlations between FEq's scores and grey matter volumes., Results: aMCI showed significantly reduced performances on FEq compared to HS in the recollection of most recent events, while no significant difference was observed for more remote memories, thus demonstrating a temporal gradient. Moreover, hippocampal volumes predicted accuracy scores for most recent, but not older, public events. Finally, an area in the subcallosal portion of the vmPFC, corresponding to BA32, predicted accuracy scores on FEq irrespective of the period examined., Conclusions: Pathological changes in a neural circuit linking hippocampal to medial prefrontal cortical regions are responsible for impaired recollection of retrograde memories in aMCI., (© 2021 The British Psychological Society.)
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- 2022
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39. Subjective organization in the episodic memory of individuals with Parkinson's disease associated with mild cognitive impairment.
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Carlesimo GA, Taglieri S, Zabberoni S, Scalici F, Peppe A, Caltagirone C, and Costa A
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- Executive Function, Humans, Memory Disorders complications, Neuropsychological Tests, Cognitive Dysfunction complications, Cognitive Dysfunction psychology, Memory, Episodic, Parkinson Disease complications, Parkinson Disease psychology
- Abstract
Word clustering (i.e., the ability to reproduce the same word pairs in consecutive recall trials of an unrelated word list) has been extensively investigated as a proxy of subjective organization (SO) of memorandum. In healthy subjects and in groups of brain-damaged patients, the rate of SO generally predicts accuracy of word list recall. This study aimed at evaluating SO in the performance of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) on a word list recall task in order to investigate the basic mechanisms of episodic memory impairment that are frequently observed in these patients. For this purpose, 56 PD patients, who were stratified according to the presence and quality of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and a group of healthy controls (HCs) were administered a word list task and an extensive battery of neuropsychological tests. Results showed that recall accuracy on the word list task progressively decreased passing from HC to PD patients without cognitive impairment, to patients with single-domain dysexecutive MCI and to patients with multiple-domain dysexecutive and amnesic MCI. Conversely, only the latter PD group showed a lower SO score than that achieved by the other groups. In the overall PD group, correlational and regression analyses demonstrated that SO scores and a composite score of executive functions were not reciprocally related, but both provided an independent and significant contribution to the prediction of word list recall accuracy. These data are discussed in terms of the contribution of executive functions and hippocampal storage processes to the onset of memory impairment in PD., (© 2021 British Psychological Society.)
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- 2022
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40. Implicit prototype learning in patients with memory deficit: Evidence from a study with Alzheimer's disease patients.
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Zabberoni S, Carlesimo GA, Perri R, Barban F, Caltagirone C, and Zannino GD
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- Humans, Learning, Memory Disorders etiology, Neuropsychological Tests, Alzheimer Disease complications, Cognitive Dysfunction
- Abstract
Objective: In a previous study (Zannino et al., 2012), it was demonstrated that individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) were unimpaired on a new prototype learning task consisting of morphed faces (face prototype learning task [FPLT]). This paradigm was devised to improve on the classical dot pattern task by ruling out any reliance on residual episodic memory or working memory resources. In the present study, we aimed to demonstrate: first, that people with even more severe episodic memory impairment than MCI are unimpaired on a fully implicit prototype learning task and second, that the dot pattern task, at variance with the FPLT, requires a no negligible contribution from the episodic memory system., Method: Twenty-four persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 48 healthy controls took part in this experiment. As in the original study, in addition to the FPLT, they were also administered the classical dot pattern task and an ordinary forced-choice face recognition task., Results: AD performed like normal controls in the FPLT but scored significantly worse on the dot pattern task and the face recognition task. Interestingly, although performance on the face recognition task did not correlate with that on the FPLT, a significant correlation was observed between the face recognition and the dot pattern task., Conclusions: Results support both of our claims: first, that also severe amnesic people can learn new visual prototypes with a fully implicit paradigm and, second, that the classical dot pattern task requires some degree of episodic resources. Further research is needed to rule out the role of working memory in solving the FPLT. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
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- 2022
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41. The temporal lobes and memory.
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Carlesimo GA
- Subjects
- Hippocampus, Humans, Learning, Memory Disorders, Amnesia, Temporal Lobe
- Abstract
Since the first description of the case of H.M. in the mid-1950s, the debate over the contribution of the mesial temporal lobe (MTL) to human memory functioning has not ceased to stimulate new experimental work and the development of new theoretical models. The early demonstration that despite their devastating memory loss patients with hippocampal damage are still able to learn a number of visuo-motor and visuo-perceptual skills at a normal rate and to be normally primed by verbal and visual material suggested that the term "memory" is actually an umbrella concept that includes very different brain plasticity phenomena and that MTL damage actually impairs only one of these. Subsequent research, which capitalized on a detailed anatomical description of MTL structures and on the close analysis of memory-related phenomena, tried to define the unique role of the MTL structures in brain plasticity and in the government of human behavior. A first hypothesis identified this role in the conscious forms of memory as opposed to implicit ones. In the last two decades, the emphasis has moved to the relational role of the hippocampus in binding together different pieces of unimodal information to provide unitary, multimodal representations of personal experiences., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
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- 2022
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42. A Lack of Practice Effects on Memory Tasks Predicts Conversion to Alzheimer Disease in Patients With Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment.
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De Simone MS, Perri R, Rodini M, Fadda L, De Tollis M, Caltagirone C, and Carlesimo GA
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- Disease Progression, Humans, Longitudinal Studies, Neuropsychological Tests, Alzheimer Disease complications, Alzheimer Disease diagnosis, Cognitive Dysfunction diagnosis
- Abstract
The aim of the current study was to test the accuracy of practice effects, that is, improvement in test performance due to repeated neuropsychological evaluations, in identifying patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (a-MCI) at greater risk of conversion to Alzheimer disease (AD). For this purpose, we conducted a longitudinal study of 54 patients diagnosed with a-MCI at the first assessment and followed-up for 4 years. During this time, 18 patients converted to AD. Baseline and 6- to 12-month follow-up performances on a large set of neuropsychological tests were analyzed to determine their diagnostic ability to predict later conversion to dementia. Results demonstrate that a lack of practice effects on episodic memory tests is an accurate prognostic indicator of late conversion to AD in a-MCI patients. In fact, even though the performance of both groups was substantially comparable at the baseline evaluation, stable a-MCI patients greatly improved their memory performance at retest after 6 to 12 months; instead, scores of converter a-MCI remained stable or decreased passing from baseline to follow-up. Standardized z-change scores on memory tasks, which were computed as a reliable measure of performance change, classified group membership with very good overall accuracy, which was higher than the classification of converter and stable a-MCIs provided by baseline or follow-up scores. We hypothesize that the lack of practice effects on memory tasks mirrors the early involvement of medial temporal lobe areas in converter a-MCI that are fundamental for the consolidation of new memory traces.
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- 2021
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43. The Free Association Task: Proposal of a Clinical Tool for Detecting Differential Profiles of Semantic Impairment in Semantic Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease.
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Zannino GD, Perri R, Marra C, Caruso G, Baroncini M, Caltagirone C, and Carlesimo GA
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- Free Association, Humans, Neuropsychological Tests, Semantics, Alzheimer Disease diagnosis, Frontotemporal Dementia diagnosis
- Abstract
Backround and Objectives : It is widely agreed that patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease (AD) and patients suffering from semantic dementia (SD) might fail clinically administered semantic tasks due to a different combination of underlying cognitive deficits: namely, degraded semantic representations in SD and degraded representations plus executive control deficit in AD. However, no easy administrable test or test battery for differentiating the semantic impairment profile in these populations has been devised yet. Materials and Methods : In this study, we propose a new easy administrable task based on a free association procedure (F-Assoc) to be used in conjunction with category fluency (Cat-Fl) and letter fluency (Lett-Fl) for quantifying pure representational and pure control deficits, thus teasing apart the semantic profile of SD and AD patients. Results : In a sample of 10 AD and 10 SD subjects, matched for disease severity, we show that indices of asymmetric performance contrasting F-Assoc and each of the two verbal fluency tasks yield a clearly distinguishable discrepancy pattern across SD and AD. We also provide empirical support for the validity of an asymmetry measure contrasting F-Assoc and Cat-FL as an index of control impairment. Conclusions : The present study suggests that the free association procedure provides a pure measure of degradation of semantic representations avoiding the confound of possible concomitant executive deficits.
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- 2021
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44. Verbal and spatial memory spans in mild cognitive impairment.
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De Tollis M, De Simone MS, Perri R, Fadda L, Caltagirone C, and Carlesimo GA
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- Humans, Memory, Short-Term, Neuropsychological Tests, Spatial Memory, Alzheimer Disease complications, Cognitive Dysfunction
- Abstract
Objectives: Working memory (WM) for verbal and visual material may be affected early in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Verbal and visuospatial span tasks, that is neuropsychological procedures commonly used for the clinical assessment of WM, have been scarcely investigated in these patients. Therefore, this study was aimed at evaluating whether performance on tests of verbal and visual-spatial span (which rely to different extents on distinct components of the WM system) is differently sensitive to the presence of MCI and, in particular, of a preclinical AD condition in patients with MCI., Materials & Methods: 99 patients with amnesic MCI were given the Digit Span Forward (DSF) and Digit Span Backward (DSB) tests and the Corsi span task (CS) at baseline and were followed up for two years. 32 MCI patients converted to Alzheimer's disease (MCIc), but 67 patients did not deteriorate to meet the criteria for AD (MCIs)., Results: Results showed that although performance on DSF did not differ between groups, performance on DSB and CS and ratio indexes indicative of a performance decline passing from DSF to DSB and from DSF to CS significantly discriminated between a group of matched healthy controls and the overall group of MCI patients. Moreover, the ratio indexes significantly discriminated between MCIc and MCIs individuals., Conclusions: These data are consistent with the hypothesis that individuals with MCI, particularly those destined to convert to AD, are affected by reduced central executive resources even though the phonological loop is still functioning normally., (© 2021 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)
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- 2021
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45. Event-Based Prospective Memory Deficit in Children with ADHD: Underlying Cognitive Factors and Association with Symptoms.
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Costanzo F, Fucà E, Menghini D, Circelli AR, Carlesimo GA, Costa A, and Vicari S
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- Child, Cognition, Humans, Memory Disorders, Memory, Short-Term, Neuropsychological Tests, Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity, Memory, Episodic
- Abstract
Event-based prospective memory (PM) was investigated in children with Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), using a novel experimental procedure to evaluate the role of working memory (WM) load, attentional focus, and reward sensitivity. The study included 24 children with ADHD and 23 typically-developing controls. The experimental paradigm comprised one baseline condition (BC), only including an ongoing task, and four PM conditions, varying for targets: 1 Target (1T), 4 Targets (4T), Unfocal (UN), and Reward (RE). Children with ADHD were slower than controls on all PM tasks and less accurate on both ongoing and PM tasks on the 4T and UN conditions. Within the ADHD group, the accuracy in the RE condition did not differ from BC. A significant relationship between ADHD-related symptoms and reduced accuracy/higher speed in PM conditions (PM and ongoing trials), but not in BC, was detected. Our data provide insight on the adverse role of WM load and attentional focus and the positive influence of reward in the PM performance of children with ADHD. Moreover, the relation between PM and ADHD symptoms paves the road for PM as a promising neuropsychological marker for ADHD diagnosis and intervention.
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- 2021
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46. Recognition Memory in Noonan Syndrome.
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Costanzo F, Alfieri P, Caciolo C, Bergonzini P, Perrino F, Zampino G, Leoni C, Menghini D, Digilio MC, Tartaglia M, Vicari S, and Carlesimo GA
- Abstract
Noonan syndrome (NS) and the clinically related NS with multiple lentiginous (NMLS) are genetic conditions characterized by upregulated RAS mitogen activated protein kinase (RAS-MAPK) signaling, which is known to impact hippocampus-dependent memory formation and consolidation. The aim of the present study was to provide a detailed characterization of the recognition memory of children and adolescents with NS/NMLS. We compared 18 children and adolescents affected by NS and NMLS with 22 typically developing (TD) children, matched for chronological age and non-verbal Intelligence Quotient (IQ), in two different experimental paradigms, to assess familiarity and recollection: a Process Dissociation Procedure (PDP) and a Task Dissociation Procedure (TDP). Differences in verbal skills between groups, as well as chronological age, were considered in the analysis. Participants with NS and NSML showed reduced recollection in the PDP and impaired associative recognition in the TDP, compared to controls. These results indicate poor recollection in the recognition memory of participants with NS and NSML, which cannot be explained by intellectual disability or language deficits. These results provide evidence of the role of mutations impacting RAS-MAPK signaling in the disruption of hippocampal memory formation and consolidation.
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- 2021
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47. Brain Neurodegeneration in the Chronic Stage of the Survivors from Severe Non-Missile Traumatic Brain Injury: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Within-Group at One versus Nine Years from a Head Injury.
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Tomaiuolo F, Cerasa A, Lerch JP, Bivona U, Carlesimo GA, Ciurli P, Raffa G, Quattropani MC, Germanò A, Caltagirone C, Formisano R, and Nigro S
- Subjects
- Adolescent, Adult, Brain Injuries, Traumatic complications, Brain Injuries, Traumatic psychology, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Middle Aged, Nerve Degeneration etiology, Nerve Degeneration psychology, Neuroimaging, Neuropsychological Tests, Young Adult, Brain diagnostic imaging, Brain Injuries, Traumatic diagnostic imaging, Memory physiology, Nerve Degeneration diagnostic imaging
- Abstract
The long-term time course of neuropathological changes occurring in survivors from severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) remains uncertain. We investigated the brain morphometry and memory performance modifications within the same group of severe non-missile traumatic brain injury patients (nmTBI) after about ∼one year and at ∼ nine years from injury. Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measurements were performed with voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to determine specific changes in the gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) and the overall gray matter volume modifications (GMV) and white matter volume modifications (WMV). Contemporarily, memory-tests were also administered. In comparison with healthy control subjects (HC), those with nmTBI showed a significant change and volume reduction in the GM and WM and also in the GMV and WMV after ∼one year; conversely, ∼nine years after injury, neurodegenerative changes spared the GM and GMV, but a prominent loss was detected in WMV and in WM sites, such as the superior longitudinal fasciculi, the body of the corpus callosum, the optic radiation, and the uncinate fasciculus. Memory performance at ∼one year in comparison with ∼nine years was stable with a subtle but significant trend toward recovery. These data demonstrate that patients with nmTBI undergo neurodegenerative processes during the chronic stage affecting mainly the cerebral WM rather than GM. Despite these anatomical brain parenchyma losses, memory performance tends to be stable or even slightly recovered. These results suggest possible correlations between progressive demyelinization and/or neuropsychiatric changes other than memory performance, and support possible treatments to prevent long-term WM degeneration of the examined nmTBI.
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- 2021
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48. Does Cue Focality Modulate Age-related Performance in Prospective Memory? An fMRI Investigation.
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Scalici F, Carlesimo GA, Santangelo V, Barban F, Macaluso E, Caltagirone C, and Costa A
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- Aged, Aging, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Reaction Time, Cues, Memory, Episodic
- Abstract
How prospective memory (PM) weakens with increasing age has been largely debated. We hypothesized that automatic and strategic PM processes, respectively mediated by focal and non-focal cues, are differently affected by aging, even starting from 50-60 years of age. We investigated this issue using a 2 × 2 design in which focal and non-focal experimental conditions were created by varying the conjoint nature of the ongoing task (lexical decision vs. syllable matching tasks) and the PM cue (words vs. syllables). In the whole-brain analysis we found that the left inferior frontal gyrus and the middle cingulate cortex were more activated when young compared to older individuals performed a PM task; moreover, the anterior cingulate cortex was selectively activated during non-focal PM when the cues were words. In a region-of-interest analysis we observed that the medial and the lateral portions of the rostral prefrontal cortex were associated with the focal and non-focal conditions respectively, more in young than in older adults. Our findings provide evidence in support of early age-related differences in automatic/strategic PM functioning.
- Published
- 2021
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49. Visuo-verbal distinction revisited: new insights from a study on temporal lobe epilepsy patients in the debate over the lateralization of material-specific and process-specific aspects of memory.
- Author
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Zannino GD, Murolo R, Grammaldo L, De Risi M, Di Gennaro G, Esposito V, Caltagirone C, and Carlesimo GA
- Subjects
- Adult, Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe complications, Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe surgery, Female, Humans, Language, Male, Memory Disorders etiology, Middle Aged, Young Adult, Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe physiopathology, Functional Laterality physiology, Memory Disorders physiopathology, Mental Recall physiology, Recognition, Psychology physiology, Visual Perception physiology
- Abstract
Introduction : The automatic interaction between a cue and a memory trace can give rise to the vivid recollection of a purely sensory past experience. But are humans able to reach back intentionally to purely sensory experiences in the absence of any exogenous or endogenous cue? In the present study, we propose an alternative hypothesis, claiming that the retrieval of associated semantic memories, stored in the left hemisphere and acting as endogenous cues, is a prerequisite for intentionally recollecting sensory experience stored in the right hemisphere during mental time travels (MTT). Methods : To investigate this issue, we administered an MTT task to 26 epileptic patients (16 males and 10 females) who had undergone right or left temporal lobectomy and to 28 age and education matched controls. The task was devised so as to require the recollection of purely visual memories in the absence of external cues. Participants also performed two conventional recognition tasks with visual and verbal materials. The three between-subjects memory tasks were analyzed separately with the Kruskal-Wallis test and the Wilcoxon rank-sum test in order to investigate differences across groups. According to our hypothesis, we expected side asymmetries in the patients' performance on the two recognition tasks but not the MTT task. Results : While patients showed the well-known hemispheric asymmetry for visual and verbal material in the (external-cue dependent) recognition tasks, no side asymmetries emerged in the purely visual MTT task. Conclusions : In keeping with the view that visual memories cannot be targeted directly by a strategic search process, the lack of any side asymmetry in our MTT task can be interpreted as a trade-off between left-sided strategic search for associated semantic memories and right-sided storage of visual ones.
- Published
- 2020
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50. Medio-lateral functional dissociation of the rostral prefrontal cortex with focal/non-focal cues during a prospective memory task.
- Author
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Barban F, Scalici F, Carlesimo GA, Macaluso E, Caltagirone C, and Costa A
- Subjects
- Attention, Dissociative Disorders, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Prefrontal Cortex diagnostic imaging, Reaction Time, Cues, Memory, Episodic
- Abstract
The rostral prefrontal cortex (rPFC) is crucial in prospective memory (PM) behavior. Several functional magnetic resonance imaging studies showed that its medial (mrPFC) and lateral (lrPFC) portions dissociate during PM tasks. In light of the Multiprocess theory (McDaniel and Einstein 2000), here we tested whether the two portions of the rPFC are dissociable by modulating strategic vs. spontaneous processes during a PM task. We investigated these two processes by means of a 2 × 2 experimental design in which focal vs. non-focal conditions were modulated by varying the conjoint nature of the ongoing task (i.e., lexical decision vs. syllable matching) and the PM cue (words vs. syllables). Using the two portions of the rPFC as regions of interest, we found an effect of the non-focal condition in the lrPFC and, conversely, an effect of the focal condition in the mrPFC. In the whole-brain analysis we found an effect of the non-focal condition in the bilateral intraparietal sulcus, the bilateral middle frontal gyrus, the supplementary motor areas and the vermis of the cerebellum, whereas we found an effect of the focal condition in the ventromedial PFC. Overall, our results show that different brain regions are involved when multiple processes underlying PM behavior are modulated.
- Published
- 2020
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