Emotional Working Memory in Alzheimer's Disease Patients

BACKGROUND: Few studies have assessed whether emotional content affects processes supporting working memory in Alzheimer disease (AD) patients. METHODS: We assessed 22 AD patients and 40 elderly controls (EC) with a delayed matching and non-matching to sample task (DMST/DNMST), and a spatial-delayed recognition span task (SRST; unique/varied) using emotional stimuli. RESULTS: AD patients showed decreased performance on both tasks compared with EC. With regard to the valence of the stimuli, we did not observe significant performance differences between groups in the DMST/DNMST. However, both groups remembered a larger number of negative than positive or neutral pictures on unique SRST. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that AD patients show a relative preservation of working memory for emotional information, particularly for negative stimuli.