Apolipoprotein E and category fluency: evidence for reduced semantic access in healthy normal controls at risk for developing Alzheimer's disease

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2004.06.022Get rights and content

Abstract

Two groups of non-demented individuals, who differed on genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD) based on their apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype, were tested on a category fluency task. Twenty ɛ4 carriers and twenty ɛ4 non-carriers were tape recorded while saying animal names for ten minutes. Five measures were examined: total names generated; total clusters; mean cluster size; mean within-cluster retrieval time; and mean between-cluster retrieval time. Groups were matched on age and education and scored as normal on a battery of psychometric tests. The ɛ4 carriers generated significantly fewer names and clusters, and took significantly longer to access clusters, when compared to the ɛ4 non-carriers. No group differences were found for cluster size or within-cluster retrieval times. We previously reported [Rosen, V. M., Bergeson, J. L., Putnam, K., Harwell, A., Sunderland, T. (2002). Working memory and apolipoprotein E: What's the connection? Neuropsychologia 40, 2226–2233] that the ɛ4 carriers in the present study scored significantly lower than the ɛ4 non-carriers on a measure of working memory/attentional capacity [Operation Span Task, see Turner, M. L., Engle, R. W. (1989). Is working memory capacity task dependent? Journal of Memory and Language 28, 127–154]. In the present study, a significant negative relationship found between span performance and between-cluster retrieval times suggested that reduced attentional capacity may have negatively impacted semantic access for the ɛ4 carriers. Finally, we found significant relationships between a Trail Making Test [Reitan, R. M. (1992). Trail Making Test, manual for administration and scoring. Tucson, AZ: Reitan Neuropsychology Laboratory] “switch” measure (Form B–Form A) and three of the five fluency measures. The findings suggested that the ɛ4 carrier's reduced attentional capacity may have interfered with their covertly shifting attention among subcategories in the fluency task, resulting in fewer names and clusters generated and longer times to access clusters.

Section snippets

Participants

The forty participants included in this study were healthy older adults (50–79 years old) who were enrolled in a longitudinal study examining biomarkers in older controls at risk for dementia (NIMH BIOCARD study). Risk was defined as either increased age or a positive family history of AD. Individuals with a family history of AD had first-degree relatives with AD who had been diagnosed from blood and thyroid tests, MRI, neuropsychological testing and family physician's records, and autopsy

A priori comparisons

The same five dependent measures that were examined by Rosen & Engle (1997) were extracted from each participant's fluency output in the present study: total number of animal names and clusters generated; the mean size of a cluster; the mean retrieval time between clusters; and the mean retrieval time within clusters. The means, standard deviations and P values for the five planned comparisons are reported in Table 2. As previously stated in the introduction of this paper, we were interested in

Discussion

The question that motivated the present study was whether our ɛ4 carriers and non-carriers would show the same pattern of fluency output as Rosen & Engle's low and high span participants (1997). Recall that Rosen & Engle found that their low span individuals generated fewer animal names and clusters, and took longer to access clusters, when compared to the high span individuals. Similarly, our ɛ4 carriers generated fewer animal names and clusters, and took longer to access clusters, when

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank the clinical staff of the Geriatric Psychiatry Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health.

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