期刊名称：Revue de Neuropsychologie Neurosciences Cognitives et Cliniques
印刷版ISSN：2101-6739
电子版ISSN：2102-6025
出版年度：2010
卷号：2
期号：2
页码：114-123
DOI：10.1684/nrp.2010.0067
出版社：John Libbey Eurotext
摘要：Figures See all figures Authors Grégoria Kalpouzos , Francis Eustache , Béatrice Desgranges Inserm – EPHE – Université de Caen/Basse-Normandie, Unité U923, GIP Cyceron, CHU Côte de Nacre, 14033 Caen Cedex, France Key words: aging, Alzheimer's disease, memory, magnetic resonance imaging, positron-emission tomography, compensatory mechanisms DOI : 10.1684/nrp.2010.0067 Page(s) : 114-23 Published in: 2010 This article emphasizes the differences on episodic memory changes and their neural substrates, between normal aging and Alzheimer's disease. While normal aging is mainly characterized by an impairment of strategic processes, both at encoding and retrieval stages, Alzheimer's disease induces genuine episodic memory deficits, at all stages. Studies that have assessed regional brain deterioration show clear differences between normal and pathological aging. Indeed, in healthy aging, the frontal cortex manifests the greatest deterioration, both structurally and functionally, while the anterior hippocampus and (functionally) the posterior cingulate cortex are the least affected. This pattern supports the developmental theory which postulates that the first regions to emerge phylogenetically and ontogenetically are the most resistant to age effects and the last ones, the most vulnerable. Furthermore, it appears to mark the parting of the ways between normal aging and Alzheimer's disease, which is characterized by early and prominent deterioration ofboth hippocampus and posterior cingulate cortex. In addition, cognitivo-metabolic correlations and activation studies have shown that episodic memory impairment in normal aging mainly results from prefrontal deterioration, a finding which clearly contrasts with that found in Alzheimer's disease where the hippocampus and the posterior cingulate gyrus play a key role. Finally, although the deterioration of different brain regions seems to mediate episodic memory impairment, functional compensatory mechanisms may take place within the prefrontal cortex in both normal and pathological aging.
