Subjective Memory Complaints and Decision Making in Young and Older Adults: An Event-Related Potential Study

Abstract

Subjective memory complaints (SMCs) may affect decision-making processes. This study aimed to investigate the neuronal correlates of feedback processing during a decision-making task in young and older adults with and without SMCs. Event-related potentials and behavioral performance during the Iowa gambling task were recorded in a total of 136 participants (65 young adults, 71 older adults). The participants were divided into two groups according to their SMCs (with SMCs: n = 60, without SMCs: n = 76). Feedback-related negativity (FRN) and P3 were analyzed in the feedback stage of the decision-making process. Older adults with SMCs scored worse in the ambiguity phase than older adults without SMCs. The FRN latency was longer for losses in older people with SMCs than in older people without SMCs in the first block. No significant differences between young and older adults with and without SMCs were observed in the other ERP measures. Compared to young adults, older adults showed delayed latency in the FRN component and reduced amplitudes and delayed latency in the P3 component. In conclusion, older people with SMCs present deficits in the decision-making process. These deficits are observed at the behavioral level, but also in neural mechanisms of early feedback processing of negative outcomes.

The Challenge of Subjective Cognitive Complaints and Executive Functions in Middle-Aged Adults as a Preclinical Stage of Dementia: A Systematic Review

“…In addition, a few longitudinal follow-up and prospective analyses were conducted. The descriptive studies corroborated the existence of a direct relationship between subjective cognitive complaints and the impairment of several executive processes, such as attention, working memory, initiative, cognitive flexibility, inhibition, planning, monitoring, verbal fluency, decision making and goal-directed behaviors [36,39,42,[45][46][47][48]. These functions were directly associated with selfreported complaints from participants but also their informants [34,41,43,44].…”

“…Among them, the most used tests assessed verbal and semantic fluency, cognitive processes such as working memory (digits—WAIS), attentional control (digits, symbol-substitution test and TMT A–B), initiation/perseveration (Korean rating scale K-DRS), BRIEF-A and inhibitory control (Stroop test). On the other hand, not all but some of the studies complemented the neuropsychological assessment with biological markers in the CSF or the use of neuroimaging [ 37 , 38 , 40 , 43 , 45 , 48 ]. Despite the high cost of neuroimaging studies and their limitations in terms of specificity and power resolution in the initial clinical analysis, which limits their applicability in the population with subjective cognitive complaints, the studies related executive performance to the presence of biomarkers in the CSF and to reductions detected by regional volumetric analyses.…”

EEG markers and subjective memory complaints in young and older people

“…It is worth noting that cut-off points and categorical distinctions are used in clinical procedures and may be helpful to neuropsychologists using this questionnaire. Partial results from the older subsample have been previously reported (Garrido-Chaves et al, 2021;Perez et al, 2021).…”

The Importance of Subjective Cognitive Decline Recognition and the Potential of Molecular and Neurophysiological Biomarkers—A Systematic Review

“…Some studies found no significant differences in P300 amplitude or latency between SCD patients and controls [ 17 , 47 , 48 ]. However, Smart et al [ 49 ] found a reduced P300 amplitude in SCD patients, suggesting a decline in attention capacity.…”