Abstract

In order to further examine spatial attention across a broad range of visual and auditory tasks, a neuroanatomical model is proposed, postulating dysfunction of interacting corticocortical circuits associated with different aspects of selective attention in DAT. A series of eight studies in patients with dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT), age-matched controls, and young, """"""""young-old"""""""" and """"""""old-old"""""""" adults will be conducted, with the following aims: (1) To examine the functional characteristics of spatial attention in mildly demented DAT patients across a broad range of visual, auditory, and cross-modal tasks; (2) To examine the neural mechanisms underlying spatial attention deficits in early DAT; (3) To examine age-related changes in these attentional functions, particularly in the old-old. For the second aim, positron emission tomography (PET) and event-related brain potentials (ERPs) will be used to disclose spatial and temporal properties, respectively, of spatial attention in the human brain. PET will aid in identifying affected brain regions in DAT. ERPs will be used to investigate the temporal locus of spatial attention changes in DAT.

  Funding Agency

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01AG007569-09
Application #
2390022
Study Section
Human Development and Aging Subcommittee 3 (HUD)
Project Start
1989-04-01
Project End
2001-03-31
Budget Start
1997-04-04
Budget End
1998-03-31
Support Year
9
Fiscal Year
1997
Total Cost
Indirect Cost

  Institution

Name
Catholic University of America
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
City
Washington
State
DC
Country
United States
Zip Code
20064

  Publications

Greenwood, P M; Sunderland, Trey; Putnam, Karen et al. (2005) Scaling of visuospatial attention undergoes differential longitudinal change as a function of APOE genotype prior to old age: results from the NIMH BIOCARD study. Neuropsychology 19:830-40
Greenwood, P M; Lambert, Chantal; Sunderland, Trey et al. (2005) Effects of apolipoprotein E genotype on spatial attention, working memory, and their interaction in healthy, middle-aged adults: results From the National Institute of Mental Health's BIOCARD study. Neuropsychology 19:199-211
Berardi, Anna Maria; Parasuraman, Raja; Haxby, James V (2005) Sustained attention in mild Alzheimer's disease. Dev Neuropsychol 28:507-37
Jiang, Yang; Luo, Yue-Jia; Parasuraman, Raja (2002) Priming of two-dimensional visual motion is reduced in older adults. Neuropsychology 16:140-5
Jiang, Yang; Luo, Yue J; Parasuraman, Raja (2002) Neural correlates of perceptual priming of visual motion. Brain Res Bull 57:211-9
Luo, Y J; Greenwood, P M; Parasuraman, R (2001) Dynamics of the spatial scale of visual attention revealed by brain event-related potentials. Brain Res Cogn Brain Res 12:371-81
Levy, J A; Parasuraman, R; Greenwood, P M et al. (2000) Acetylcholine affects the spatial scale of attention: evidence from Alzheimer's disease. Neuropsychology 14:288-98
Greenwood, P M; Sunderland, T; Friz, J L et al. (2000) Genetics and visual attention: selective deficits in healthy adult carriers of the epsilon 4 allele of the apolipoprotein E gene. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 97:11661-6
Jiang, Y; Haxby, J V; Martin, A et al. (2000) Complementary neural mechanisms for tracking items in human working memory. Science 287:643-6
Parasuraman, R; Greenwood, P M; Alexander, G E (2000) Alzheimer disease constricts the dynamic range of spatial attention in visual search. Neuropsychologia 38:1126-35

Showing the most recent 10 out of 20 publications