Association between subjective memory assessment and associative memory performance: Role of ad risk factors.

Abstract

Decline in associative memory abilities is a common cognitive complaint among older adults and is detectable in both normal aging and in prodromal Alzheimer's disease (AD). Subjective memory (SM) complaints may serve as an earlier marker of these mnemonic changes; however, previous research examining the predictive utility of SM to observed memory performance yielded inconsistent results. This inconsistency is likely due to other sources of variance that occur with memory decline such as mood/depression issues, presence of apolipoprotein E (APOE ε4) genotype, or beta-amyloid deposition. Here we examine the relationship between SM and associative memory ability in the context of factors that increase susceptibility to AD in 195 healthy adults (79 men) aged 20-94 years. Participants completed an SM questionnaire, a mood/depression scale, two associative memory tests (a word-pair and a name-face test), and were genotyped for APOE ε4. PET-amyloid imaging data were collected for a subset of those over 50 years of age (N = 74). We found that SM predicted performance on both associative memory tests even after covarying for age, sex, mood, and APOE ε4 status. Interestingly, for the name-face associative task, increased SM concerns predicted memory performance selectively in participants over the age of 60, with the APOEε4 risk group showing the strongest effect. Finally, men with higher beta-amyloid deposition reported more memory complaints. Our findings suggest that SM reliably tracks memory performance, even in cognitively healthy adults, and may reflect an increased risk for AD. (PsycINFO Database Record

The ERP correlate of episodic recollection is a neurocognitive determinant of subjective memory complaints: Implications on their predictive validity.

“…We conclude that problems with episodic recollection are one determinant of SMCs. This properly complements behavioral results that relate SMCs to hippocampally dependent relational memory processes (Horn et al, 2018;Lucas et al, 2016). However, as this study and others show, SMCs are multiply determined as they further rely on negative affective variables, such as depression, anxiety and neuroticism (Balash et al, 2010(Balash et al, , 2013Buckley et al, 2013;Pearman et al, 2014;Rowell et al, 2016;Yates et al, 2017), and memory self-efficacy (Lucas et al, 2016).…”

“…This conclusion is further supported by a study of Hafkemeijer et al (2013), who report increased functional connectivity within the default mode network as well as the medial visual network in elderly adults with SMCs, indicating a compensatory mechanism. As a rare exception, Horn et al (2018) report that SMCs in elderly participants were related to behavioral performance in an associative memory task (face-name-recognition) which might be explained by the high ecological validity of this task as problems in face-namerecognition do occur frequently in the daily life of elderly people (Naveh-Benjamin et al, 2004). Together, these results emphasize the prognostic importance of SMCs that target hippocampal processes, as they might have a greater potential to reveal problems with episodic memory than standard source or associative memory tasks.…”

“…Some studies report that SMCs are accompanied by deficits in objective memory performance (Amariglio et al, 2011; Bassett & Folstein, 1993; Christensen, 1991; Gallassi et al, 2010; Horn et al, 2018; Carrasco et al, 2017; Rijs et al 2013; Schofield et al, 1997; Vaskivuo et al, 2018; see also Jonker et al, 2000; Brigola et al, 2015, for reviews) whereas other studies report no relationship (Balash et al, 2010; Caramelli & Beato, 2008; Minett et al, 2008; Pearman et al, 2014). Additionally, a literature review concludes that there is no association between SMCs and objective memory performance (Riedel-Heller et al, 2000) or only a small relationship as in the meta-analysis by Crumley et al (2014).…”

Actual memory as a mediator of the amyloid‐subjective cognitive decline relationship

“…The correspondence between subjective and objective memory in cognitively normal individuals has been controversial [35–37], and most studies have only focused on the cross‐sectional associations (for a meta‐analysis, see [38]). Thus, particularly notable was the finding that the longitudinal measure of memory decline mediates the amyloid/complaint relationship, validating the sensitivity of SCD in reflecting actual retrospective declines, likely resulted from AD pathology, which may be too subtle to detect with clinical testing in cognitively normal adults.…”

Age-related differences in associative memory: Empirical evidence and theoretical perspectives.

“…Interestingly, the training seems to have specific effects on the trained association (e.g., between word and the modality in which it was presented, auditory or visual) and does not seem to transfer to the recollection of associations in other tasks. Finally, the study by Horn, Kennedy, and Rodrigue (2018) looks at participants’ subjective memory complaints in a life span sample and how they are related to observed memory performance. The results indicate that responses to a subjective memory questionnaire predict performance well on associative memory tasks involving word pairs and face-name pairs.…”