Interplay between memory and executive functions in normal and pathological aging

Abstract

Healthy older adults and Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients are reported in the literature to be impaired in memory and executive functions. This research investigates the extent of these two abilities in determining pathological aging. Groups of young-old and old-old healthy people (Experiment 1) and individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (a-MCI) and AD (Experiment 2) were administered verbal and visuo-spatial tests graded for memory and/or executive requirements. Results indicate a decline in visuo-spatial tasks requiring memory and executive functions in healthy aging. The a-MCI showed memory deficits similar to those shown by AD, but preserved executive functions. Executive function decline could be the critical feature of dementia.

Keywords:

• Aging
• Amnestic mild cognitive impairment
• Dementia
• Executive functions
• Memory
• Mild cognitive impairment

The authors wish to thank Rossana De Beni for her helpful comments during the preparation of this manuscript. This study has been approved by the ethics committee of the Faculty of Psychology, University of Padova, and has therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki.

Notes

¹Because in some cases assumption of homogeneity of variance was violated, we also computed nonparametric statistics obtaining the same results as those with the t test.