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Memory for emotional stimuli in patients with Alzheimer's disease

Susan H. Kim, BS

Michael Doo, BS

Gerald Maguire, MD

Steven G. Potkin, MD

Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of California, Irvine, California.

Although a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is memory impairment, there is speculation that recall may be enhanced when an emotional component is associated with an event. The current study aims to assess whether patients with AD would recall emotionally laden material better than neutral stimuli. DSMIVdiagnosed AD patients with mild to moderate dementia, as well as groups of young and elderly healthy controls, participated in this study. All subjects were administered three word lists for three trials each. The words were positive, negative, or neutral in valence and matched for concreteness, emotionality, and pleasantness. As expected, the controls performed significantly better than the AD patients. Importantly, the pattern of recall for the emotions was different, such that both control groups recalled all emotions equally, whereas the AD patients recalled significantly more negative words than positive or neutral. These findings of improved immediate memory for emotional material in AD lends support to the notion that mnemonic functions are differentially affected in the disease.

Key Words: Alzheimer's disease • memory • emotional memory • dementia • neuropsychology • amygdala

American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias®, Vol. 18, No. 6, 340-342 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/153331750301800604


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