Our data suggest compensatory activation in prefrontal cortex and amygdala, but also dysfunctional inhibition of distracting information in the AD/MCI group during higher WM task difficulty. Additionally, attentional processes affecting the correlation between WM performance and neurofunctional activation seem to be different between incipient AD and healthy aging.

Our findings suggest that impairments of structural fiber tract integrity accompany breakdown of posterior and relatively preserved anterior cortical activation during working memory performance in MCI/AD subjects.