Interference Impacts Working Memory in Mild Cognitive Impairment

Abstract

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is considered a transitional stage between healthy aging and dementia, specifically Alzheimer's disease (AD). The most common cognitive impairment of MCI includes episodic memory loss and difficulties in working memory (WM). Interference can deplete WM, and an optimal WM performance requires an effective control of attentional resources between the memoranda and the incoming stimuli. Difficulties in handling interference lead to forgetting. However, the interplay between interference and WM in MCI is not well-understood and needs further investigation. The current study investigated the effect of interference during a WM task in 20 MCIs and 20 healthy elder volunteers. Participants performed a delayed match-to-sample paradigm which consisted in two interference conditions, distraction and interruption, and one control condition without any interference. Results evidenced a disproportionate impact of interference on the WM performance of MCIs, mainly in the presence of interruption. These findings demonstrate that interference, and more precisely interruption, is an important proxy for memory-related deficits in MCI. Thus, the current findings reveal novel evidence regarding the causes of WM forgetting in MCI patients, associated with difficulties in the mechanisms of attentional control.

Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment is Characterized by the Inability to Recover from Proactive Semantic Interference across Multiple Learning Trials

“…This was confirmed in subsequent studies (2)(3)(4). Difficulties in inhibitory processes and self-monitoring have also been seen as early features of incipient Alzheimer's disease (AD; [5][6][7][8]. Loewenstein and colleagues (2004) posited that learning deficits are related to deficiencies in the semantic network and found that proactive interference of competing to-be-remembered lists of semantically related targets were especially sensitive to the mild cognitive impairment (MCI) stages of AD (6).…”

Convergent functional changes of the episodic memory impairment in mild cognitive impairment: An ALE meta-analysis

“…And the average annual conversion rate is higher than that of the general population (Petersen et al, 2001). The earliest and most common clinical symptoms of AD are episodic memory loss, accelerated forgetting, and impaired delayed memory (Aurtenetxe et al, 2016). Numerous resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) studies have shown that there are abnormalities in brain regions and large-scale brain functional networks in MCI and AD patients (Yuan et al, 2016).…”

Functioning of Cognitive Memory Inhibition Processes in People with Down Syndrome: An Empirical Study

“…Problems of effectiveness in resolving interference have also been observed in other populations, such as in people with mild cognitive impairment. Aurtenetxe et al (2016), applying a task similar to that used in the present study, with people with mild cognitive impairment, found that, in the presence of interference -interruption-, there was a greater number of forgotten information. These results are consistent with other inhibition studies with populations with Alzheimer's dementia (Collette, Schmidt, Scherrer, Adam, & Salmon, 2009).…”