Brandon A. Ally, PhD - US grants

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Memory research in Alzheimer's disease (AD) has typically focused on word-based or verbal stimuli. However, pictures may have more clinical and ecological importance, as patients are commonly faced with visual stimuli, such as people, landmarks, and medications. Research has shown that pictures can help healthy older adults improve discrimination, reduce false memories, and shift to a more conservative response bias. Response bias is one's tendency to respond "old" or "new" on a recognition memory test. AD patients exhibit an abnormally high rate of false memories and a liberal response bias. Preliminary studies suggest that AD patients may also be able to use the distinctive information provided by pictures to improve their discrimination and reduce their number of false memories. The current application will use techniques of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience to examine the effect of pictures on memory performance in AD patients. Two behavioral and two event-related potential (ERP) experiments are proposed to evaluate three specific aims. Aim 1 will compare discrimination and response bias for pictures versus words in a single experiment systematically varying pictures and words at study and test. Aim 2 will use standard neuropsychological measures of medial temporal lobe and frontal lobe function to evaluate neuroanatomical regions that may contribute to the effect of pictures on discrimination and response bias in AD. Finally, Aim 3 will use grayscale versus color pictures and a level of processing manipulation to evaluate two hypotheses regarding how pictures might affect memory processes in AD. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Memory research in Alzheimer's disease (AD) has typically focused on word-based or verbal stimuli. However, pictures may have more clinical and ecological importance, as patients are commonly faced with visual stimuli, such as people, landmarks, and medications. Research has shown that pictures can help healthy older adults improve discrimination, reduce false memories, and shift to a more conservative response bias. Response bias is one's tendency to respond "old" or "new" on a recognition memory test. AD patients exhibit an abnormally high rate of false memories and a liberal response bias. Preliminary studies suggest that AD patients may also be able to use the distinctive information provided by pictures to improve their discrimination and reduce their number of false memories. The current application will use techniques of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience to examine the effect of pictures on memory performance in AD patients. Two behavioral and two event-related potential (ERP) experiments are proposed to evaluate three specific aims. Aim 1 will compare discrimination and response bias for pictures versus words in a single experiment systematically varying pictures and words at study and test. Aim 2 will use standard neuropsychological measures of medial temporal lobe and frontal lobe function to evaluate neuroanatomical regions that may contribute to the effect of pictures on discrimination and response bias in AD. Finally, Aim 3 will use grayscale versus color pictures and a level of processing manipulation to evaluate two hypotheses regarding how pictures might affect memory processes in AD. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this project is to use pictures to better understand the specific nature of memory loss in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). By using techniques of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience, this work will help to elucidate which processes of recognition memory are impaired and which are relatively intact. Behavioral data will inform us about the patients' performance, and event-related potentials (ERPs) will allow us to record discrete changes in brain activity, without the necessity of overt behavioral responses from study participants. Dual-process models of memory argue that recognition is subserved by recollection and familiarity. While it is understood that recollection is impaired early in AD, research is conflicted as to whether patients with mild AD can successfully use familiarity to support memory judgments. Our previous work suggests that pictures are an important class of stimuli that may allow patients with mild AD to use enhanced familiarity to improve their memory accuracy over words. Based on this hypothesis, the primary aims of the proposed research are to determine 1) whether pictures allow patients with mild AD to successfully use familiarity to support picture recognition, 2) whether pictures allow patients with mild AD to successfully use post-retrieval monitoring and verification, and 3) whether patients with mild AD can use imagery strategies to turn words into pictures. As part of this proposed research, the candidate seeks training in: 1) the methodology and ethics of clinical research pertaining to patients, 2) advanced cognitive neuroscience of learning and memory and 3) understanding complex high-density ERP data and how it relates to cognitive and neural correlates of memory. The proposed research plan, didactic courses, and tutorial instruction from mentors and advisors will foster the candidate's development into an independent clinician-scientist focusing on understanding how memory breaks down in Alzheimer's disease. RELEVANCE (See instructions): The experiments outlined in this proposal are aimed both at understanding the underpinnings of memory loss in AD, and also at possible early intervention strategies that can be rapidly implemented in the clinical setting. This translational research can help to ease the burden placed on caregivers in the home, ease the financial burden placed on the infrastructure of the health care system, and provide a novel understanding of this devastating disease to allow for new drug therapies and interventions to be developed. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Pictures improve memory over words, and patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) show a much greater improvement than healthy older adults. This simple fact has tremendous implications for millions of patients with AD. If we were able to better understand exactly how pictures improve memory in these patients, new memory enhancing techniques could be developed to further increase their memory, improving quality of life and saving money for caregivers and the healthcare system. This proposal will use the techniques of experimental psychology (computer-based behavioral studies) and cognitive neuroscience (EEG-based event- related potential [ERP] studies) to examine the cognitive and neural processes that underlie the robust picture superiority effect in patients with AD. Aim 1 examines the hypothesis that intact perceptual processing of distinctive visual information enhances the encoding, storage, and retrieval of pictures in patients with AD. Expts 1 and 2 examine whether adding or subtracting perceptual detail at encoding increases or decreases the picture superiority effect. Expt 3 uses a perceptual masked identification task to determine whether patients can recognize unidentifiable test pictures based only on stored perceptual information. Expt 4 examines whether removing distinctive visual information from the retrieval cues eliminates the picture superiority effect. Aim 2 examines the hypothesis that intact conceptual processing enhances the encoding, storage, and retrieval of pictures in patients with AD. Expt 5 uses ERPs to determine whether picture stimuli allow for better encoding of conceptual information than ambiguous images with and without conceptual labels. Expt 6 uses a conceptual implicit memory test to determine whether the conceptual information stored for pictures is superior to the conceptual information stored for words. Expt 7 uses ERPs to examine whether patients demonstrate the picture superiority effect for a category-based retrieval task. Finally, Aim 3 examines the hypothesis that impaired encoding, storage, and retrieval of words contributes to the robust picture superiority effect in patients with AD. Expt 8 uses ERPs to examine differences in brain activity for successful encoding of pictures compared to successful encoding of visually and auditorily presented words. Expt 9 uses ERPs to examine whether limitations in the ability to generate an internal image representation of words at encoding contributes to the robust picture superiority effect in AD. Expt 10 examines whether forgetting rates of stored words and pictures are differentially affected by AD. Finally, Expt 11 examines whether words are less effective as retrieval cues compared to pictures. Successful completion of these aims and experiments will provide us with a detailed understanding of how pictures enhance memory in AD. This understanding could subsequently improve methods of clinical assessment, and serve as the basis of promising new learning techniques, such as errorless learning. These new techniques may help patients remember how and when to take their medications and perform activities of daily living, thereby improving their quality of life. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, and often the presenting symptom, is significant impairment in episodic memory, which leads to societal and financial burden. Pictures improve memory in Alzheimer's disease and could potentially reduce the burdens placed on caregivers and the infrastructure of the healthcare system. The experiments in this grant proposal will investigate how and why pictures improve memory in patients with Alzheimer's disease in an effort to find better ways to help patients combat memory problems and live at home and in the community longer.