Depression in alzheimer's disease: Impact of the emotional valence of concepts on semantic memory.

DEPRESSION IN ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE:
IMPACT OF THE EMOTIONAL VALENCE OF CONCEPTS ON SEMANTIC MEMORY

SIMOES LOUREIRO Isabelle, MICELI Aurélie, GERIN Kimberly, RENDON DE LA CRUZ Aurelia, KANDANA ARACHCHIGE Kendra, ROSSIGNOL Mandy
& LEFEBVRE Laurent

Department of Cognitive Psychology and Neuropsychology, University of Mons, Belgium
Email: isabelle.simoesloureiro@umons.ac.be

This study aims to analyze the impact of the emotional valence of concepts on semantic memory in depressed Alzheimer's disease (AD). 36 elderly women participated to an affective and semantic priming paradigm: a control group of 20 healthy elderly (mean age 81.8±6.8; MMSE 28.4±1.2) and an experimental group of 16 mild AD (mean age 84.3±6.1; MMSE 24±2.8), half of the AD subjects showed symptoms of depression (D-AD), and the other half did not (ND-AD). The priming protocol contained 3 different conditions: positive valence (V+) (e.g. joke-laugh), negative valence (V-) (e.g. army-soldier) and neutral (semantic but not affective relations) (Vn) (e.g. school-student). A repeated-measures ANOVA showed main effects of group (F=41.526; p=.001) with a more important priming effect in AD, particularly in D-AD group and a main effect of condition (F=5.453, p=.008) with more important priming effect for affective valence. A group*condition interaction effect (F=3.082 ; p=.025) was also observed demonstrating an hyperpriming effect in the V- condition in D-AD whereas control subjects and ND-AD showed on the contrary an hyperpriming effect for V+. These results suggest that mood disorders in AD have an impact on negative information processing, shown by a specific hyperpriming effect in AD patients with depression.