Dysexecutive Functioning in Mild Cognitive Impairment: Derailment in Temporal Gradients

Libon et al. (2010) provided evidence for three statistically determined clusters of patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI): amnesic (aMCI), dysexecutive (dMCI), and mixed (mxMCI). The current study further examined dysexecutive impairment in MCI using the framework of Fuster's (1997) de...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society 2012-01, Vol.18 (1), p.20-28
Main Authors: Eppig, Joel, Wambach, Denene, Nieves, Christine, Price, Catherine C., Lamar, Melissa, Delano-Wood, Lisa, Giovannetti, Tania, Bettcher, Brianne M., Penney, Dana L., Swenson, Rod, Lippa, Carol, Kabasakalian, Anahid, Bondi, Mark W., Libon, David J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activities of daily living
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Alzheimer's disease
Amnesia - physiopathology
Analysis of Variance
Cluster Analysis
Cognition Disorders - classification
Cognition Disorders - physiopathology
Cognitive ability
Dementia
Executive Function - physiology
Female
Humans
Male
Memory
Middle Aged
Neuropsychological Tests
Neuropsychology
Retrospective Studies
Verbal Learning
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Summary:Libon et al. (2010) provided evidence for three statistically determined clusters of patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI): amnesic (aMCI), dysexecutive (dMCI), and mixed (mxMCI). The current study further examined dysexecutive impairment in MCI using the framework of Fuster's (1997) derailed temporal gradients, that is, declining performance on executive tests over time or test epoch. Temporal gradients were operationally defined by calculating the slope of aggregate letter fluency output across 15-s epochs and accuracy indices for initial, middle, and latter triads from the Wechsler Memory Scale-Mental Control subtest (Boston Revision). For letter fluency, slope was steeper for dMCI compared to aMCI and NC groups. Between-group Mental Control analyses for triad 1 revealed worse dMCI performance than NC participants. On triad 2, dMCI scored lower than aMCI and NCs; on triad 3, mxMCI performed worse versus NCs. Within-group Mental Control analyses yielded equal performance across all triads for aMCI and NC participants. mxMCI scored lower on triad 1 compared to triads 2 and 3. dMCI participants also performed worse on triad 1 compared to triads 2 and 3, but scored higher on triad 3 versus triad 2. These data suggest impaired temporal gradients may provide a useful heuristic for understanding dysexecutive impairment in MCI. (JINS, 2012, 18, 20–28)
ISSN:1355-6177
1469-7661
DOI:10.1017/S1355617711001238