Brain, Vol 121, Issue 12 2259-2270, Copyright © 1998 by Oxford University Press
M Rizzo and M Nawrot
Alzheimer's disease is the most prevalent cause of abnormal cognitive
decline in older adults and commonly affects visual function. Recent
evidence suggests that Alzheimer's disease impairs the processing of visual
motion, but these conclusions are based on conflicting results in the few
cases studied, and the processing of complex motion images has not been
investigated. In the present study of motion processing in Alzheimer's
disease we assessed visual functions in 63 adults: 41 with mild to moderate
Alzheimer's disease (mean age 72.3 years) and 22 without dementia (mean age
71.7 years). Processing of motion cues was tested with computer animation
sequences known as random-dot cinematograms, which resemble the stimuli
used to define motion processing deficits in primates with lesions of
cortical area MT. Results showed that participants with Alzheimer's disease
required significantly greater thresholds for perceiving shapes defined by
motion cues compared with participants without dementia (P = 0.0005). There
were no significant differences between the two groups (P < 0.05) in
static visual acuity, static spatial contrast sensitivity and,
surprisingly, dynamic visual acuity, which was normal, and motion direction
discrimination, which was relatively spared. We conclude that mild to
moderate Alzheimer's disease has significant effects on the perception of
structure from motion with relative sparing of motion direction
discrimination. We cannot exclude a contribution by retinal pathology, but
retinal dysfunction alone cannot explain the pattern of defects we
observed. The complex motion image processing deficit we identified is
likely to have a cerebral basis and has the potential to affect navigation
and the recognition of objects in relative motion, as encountered during
walking and automobile driving.
ARTICLES
Perception of movement and shape in Alzheimer's disease
Department of Neurology, College of Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA. matthew-rizzo@uiowa.edu
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