Prospective Memory Impairments in Alzheimer’s Disease and Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia: Clinical and Neural Correlates

Dermody, Nadene; Hornberger, Michael; Piguet, Olivier; Hodges, John R.; Irish, Muireann

doi:10.3233/jad-150871

Cited by 44 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…AD and bvFTD patients display comparable episodic memory dysfunction (33,34). Both groups also display marked impairments in future-oriented thinking, including prospective memory (35,36) and constructive simulation of future episodes (20,37,38). Accordingly, similar reductions in mind wandering might have been predicted.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Hippocampal atrophy and intrinsic brain network dysfunction relate to alterations in mind wandering in neurodegeneration

O’Callaghan

Shine

Hodges

et al. 2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Mind wandering represents the human capacity for internally focused thought and relies upon the brain’s default network and its interactions with attentional networks. Studies have characterized mind wandering in healthy people, yet there is limited understanding of how this capacity is affected in clinical populations. This paper used a validated thought-sampling task to probe mind wandering capacity in two neurodegenerative disorders: behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia [(bvFTD); n = 35] and Alzheimer’s disease [(AD); n = 24], compared with older controls (n = 37). These patient groups were selected due to canonical structural and functional changes across sites of the default and frontoparietal networks and well-defined impairments in cognitive processes that support mind wandering. Relative to the controls, bvFTD patients displayed significantly reduced mind wandering capacity, offset by a significant increase in stimulus-bound thought. In contrast, AD patients demonstrated comparable levels of mind wandering to controls, in the context of a relatively subtle shift toward stimulus-/task-related forms of thought. In the patient groups, mind wandering was associated with gray matter integrity in the hippocampus/parahippocampus, striatum, insula, and orbitofrontal cortex. Resting-state functional connectivity revealed associations between mind wandering capacity and connectivity within and between regions of the frontoparietal and default networks with distinct patterns evident in patients vs. controls. These findings support a relationship between altered mind wandering capacity in neurodegenerative disorders and structural and functional integrity of the default and frontoparietal networks. This paper highlights a dimension of cognitive dysfunction not well documented in neurodegenerative disorders and validates current models of mind wandering in a clinical population.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Hippocampal atrophy and intrinsic brain network dysfunction relate to alterations in mind wandering in neurodegeneration

O’Callaghan

Shine

Hodges

et al. 2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…AD and bvFTD patients display comparable episodic memory dysfunction (38)(39)(40). Both groups also display marked impairments in future-oriented thinking, including prospective memory (41,42) and constructive simulation of future episodes (21,43,44).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hippocampal atrophy and intrinsic brain network dysfunction relate to alterations in mind wandering in neurodegeneration

O’Callaghan

Shine

Hodges

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Mind wandering represents the human capacity for internally focussed thought, and relies upon the brain’s default network and its interactions with attentional networks. Studies have characterised mind wandering in healthy people, yet there is limited understanding of how this capacity is affected in clinical populations. This study used a validated thought-sampling task to probe mind wandering capacity in two neurodegenerative disorders: behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD; n=35) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD; n=24), compared to older controls (n=37). These patient groups were selected due to canonical structural and functional changes across sites of the default and frontoparietal networks, and well-defined impairments in cognitive processes that support mind wandering. Relative to controls, bvFTD patients displayed significantly reduced mind wandering capacity, offset by a significant increase in stimulus-bound thought. In contrast, AD patients demonstrated comparable levels of mind wandering to controls, in the context of a relatively subtle shift towards stimulus-/task-related forms of thought. In the patient groups, mind wandering was associated with grey matter integrity in the hippocampus/parahippocampus, striatum, insula and orbitofrontal cortex. Resting state functional connectivity revealed associations between mind wandering capacity and connectivity within and between regions of the frontoparietal and default networks, with distinct patterns evident in patients vs. controls. These findings support a relationship between altered mind wandering capacity in neurodegenerative disorders, and structural and functional integrity of the default and frontoparietal networks. This study highlights a dimension of cognitive dysfunction not well documented in neurodegenerative disorders, and validates current models of mind wandering in a clinical population.Significance statementHumans spend much of their waking life engaged in mind wandering. Underlying brain systems supporting this complex ability have been established in healthy individuals, yet it remains unclear how mind wandering is altered in neuropsychiatric populations. We reveal changes in the thought profiles elicited during periods of low cognitive demand in dementia, resulting in reduced mind wandering and an increased propensity towards stimulus-bound thought. These altered thought profiles were associated with structural and functional brain changes in the hippocampus, default and frontoparietal networks; key regions implicated in internal mentation in healthy individuals. Our findings provide a unique clinical validation of current theoretical models of mind wandering, and reveal a dimension of cognitive dysfunction that has received scant attention in dementia.

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“…Obviously, changes in one's personal time horizon are implicated in suffering from dementia, and it was to be expected that we would have to deal with this when inviting AD patients to become involved in research. First of all, a common implication of dementia is that not only retrospective memory is impairedso is the ability to project oneself forward in time and, thus, to imagine the future (Dermody et al 2016). However, our experiences also illustrate another, and more generalizable, aspect of the changing horizons of people with dementia.…”

Section: Changing Horizonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subtle voices, distant futures: a critical look at conditions for patient involvement in Alzheimer’s biomarker research and beyond

Nielsen

Boenink

2019

Journal of Responsible Innovation

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Patient involvement is increasingly regarded a key part of responsible innovation (RI) in biomedicine. The high expectations to participation call not only for methodological experiments, but also for critical analyses of the conditions and products of participatory practices. Based on an experiment with involving patients in Alzheimer's disease biomarker research, we identify and reflect on two key conditions in patient involvement that we summarize as 'subtle voices' and 'distant futures'. The former refers to the hesitance and knowledge hierarchies that participants may enact and/or experience; the latter refers to the challenges of imagining elusive technologies and future practices, not least in the light of an illness that fundamentally changes the meaning of time. We argue that while our case may be exceptionally challenging, it provides a valuable lens for illuminating these key conditions that promotors and facilitators of patient participation in, especially, early-stage innovation processes should acknowledge and address. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Prospective Memory Impairments in Alzheimer’s Disease and Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia: Clinical and Neural Correlates

Abstract: Background: Prospective memory (PM) refers to a future-oriented form of memory in which

Cited by 44 publications

References 63 publications

Hippocampal atrophy and intrinsic brain network dysfunction relate to alterations in mind wandering in neurodegeneration

Hippocampal atrophy and intrinsic brain network dysfunction relate to alterations in mind wandering in neurodegeneration

Hippocampal atrophy and intrinsic brain network dysfunction relate to alterations in mind wandering in neurodegeneration

Subtle voices, distant futures: a critical look at conditions for patient involvement in Alzheimer’s biomarker research and beyond

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