Publication Date:
2015-10-24
Description:
Alzheimer's disease (AD) manifests with memory loss and spatial disorientation. AD pathology starts in the entorhinal cortex, making it likely that local neural correlates of spatial navigation, particularly grid cells, are impaired. Grid-cell-like representations in humans can be measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We found that young adults at genetic risk for AD (APOE-epsilon4 carriers) exhibit reduced grid-cell-like representations and altered navigational behavior in a virtual arena. Both changes were associated with impaired spatial memory performance. Reduced grid-cell-like representations were also related to increased hippocampal activity, potentially reflecting compensatory mechanisms that prevent overt spatial memory impairment in APOE-epsilon4 carriers. Our results provide evidence of behaviorally relevant entorhinal dysfunction in humans at genetic risk for AD, decades before potential disease onset.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Kunz, Lukas -- Schroder, Tobias Navarro -- Lee, Hweeling -- Montag, Christian -- Lachmann, Bernd -- Sariyska, Rayna -- Reuter, Martin -- Stirnberg, Rudiger -- Stocker, Tony -- Messing-Floeter, Paul Christian -- Fell, Juergen -- Doeller, Christian F -- Axmacher, Nikolai -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2015 Oct 23;350(6259):430-3. doi: 10.1126/science.aac8128.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Bonn, Germany. Department of Epileptology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany. ; Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands. ; German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Bonn, Germany. ; Department of Psychology, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany. ; Department of Psychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany. Center for Economics and Neuroscience, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany. ; Department of Epileptology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany. ; German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Bonn, Germany. Department of Epileptology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany. Department of Neuropsychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany. nikolai.axmacher@rub.de.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26494756" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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