Cargando…
Have I Been Here? Sense of Location in People With Alzheimer's Disease
Background: When navigating in a particular space, a sense of being at a current location is of great help for the navigators in reaching their destination or getting back to the start. To accomplish this work, interwoven neural structures and neurons are called into play. This system is called the...
Autores principales: | , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2020
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7756125/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33362529 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2020.582525 |
_version_ | 1783626473366618112 |
---|---|
author | Pai, Ming-Chyi Jan, Shau-Shiun |
author_facet | Pai, Ming-Chyi Jan, Shau-Shiun |
author_sort | Pai, Ming-Chyi |
collection | PubMed |
description | Background: When navigating in a particular space, a sense of being at a current location is of great help for the navigators in reaching their destination or getting back to the start. To accomplish this work, interwoven neural structures and neurons are called into play. This system is called the heading direction cell-place cell-grid cell circuit. Evidence from various neuroscience studies has revealed that the regions responsible for this circuit are damaged in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD). This may explain why wayfinding difficulty is one of the most frequent symptoms in persons with AD. The aim of this study was to examine the sense of location (SoL) in persons with mild AD, persons with prodromal AD (prAD), and those who were cognitively unimpaired (CU). Methods: We invited people with mild AD, prAD, and CU to participate in this study. The venue of the core experiment to assess SoL was a 660-m path located on the university campus. The participants were instructed to take a walk on the path and press a device to indicate their arrival at each of the five carefully chosen targets. The linear deviations from the target site were compared among the groups. Results: A total of 20 AD, 28 prAD, and 29 CU persons completed the study. Their Mini-Mental State Examination scores were on average 20 (SD 3), 24 (SD 3), and 28 (SD 2). The groups were well differentiated regarding several measurements for cognitive ability and spatial navigation. As for the SoL, the hit rates of exact location with linear deviation of 16 m or less were 0.05, 0.54, and 0.86 for AD, prAD, and CU persons, respectively. The hit rates were well correlated with the presence of getting lost. Also, SoL differentiated well among CU, PrAD, and AD in terms of average linear deviation. Conclusions: Our employing linear deviation by utilizing a grid-cell function device as an assessment for SoL showed distinct features among the three groups. This model can be used to develop more delicate devices or instruments to detect, monitor, and aid spatial navigation in persons with prAD and AD. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7756125 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-77561252020-12-24 Have I Been Here? Sense of Location in People With Alzheimer's Disease Pai, Ming-Chyi Jan, Shau-Shiun Front Aging Neurosci Neuroscience Background: When navigating in a particular space, a sense of being at a current location is of great help for the navigators in reaching their destination or getting back to the start. To accomplish this work, interwoven neural structures and neurons are called into play. This system is called the heading direction cell-place cell-grid cell circuit. Evidence from various neuroscience studies has revealed that the regions responsible for this circuit are damaged in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD). This may explain why wayfinding difficulty is one of the most frequent symptoms in persons with AD. The aim of this study was to examine the sense of location (SoL) in persons with mild AD, persons with prodromal AD (prAD), and those who were cognitively unimpaired (CU). Methods: We invited people with mild AD, prAD, and CU to participate in this study. The venue of the core experiment to assess SoL was a 660-m path located on the university campus. The participants were instructed to take a walk on the path and press a device to indicate their arrival at each of the five carefully chosen targets. The linear deviations from the target site were compared among the groups. Results: A total of 20 AD, 28 prAD, and 29 CU persons completed the study. Their Mini-Mental State Examination scores were on average 20 (SD 3), 24 (SD 3), and 28 (SD 2). The groups were well differentiated regarding several measurements for cognitive ability and spatial navigation. As for the SoL, the hit rates of exact location with linear deviation of 16 m or less were 0.05, 0.54, and 0.86 for AD, prAD, and CU persons, respectively. The hit rates were well correlated with the presence of getting lost. Also, SoL differentiated well among CU, PrAD, and AD in terms of average linear deviation. Conclusions: Our employing linear deviation by utilizing a grid-cell function device as an assessment for SoL showed distinct features among the three groups. This model can be used to develop more delicate devices or instruments to detect, monitor, and aid spatial navigation in persons with prAD and AD. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-12-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7756125/ /pubmed/33362529 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2020.582525 Text en Copyright © 2020 Pai and Jan. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Neuroscience Pai, Ming-Chyi Jan, Shau-Shiun Have I Been Here? Sense of Location in People With Alzheimer's Disease |
title | Have I Been Here? Sense of Location in People With Alzheimer's Disease |
title_full | Have I Been Here? Sense of Location in People With Alzheimer's Disease |
title_fullStr | Have I Been Here? Sense of Location in People With Alzheimer's Disease |
title_full_unstemmed | Have I Been Here? Sense of Location in People With Alzheimer's Disease |
title_short | Have I Been Here? Sense of Location in People With Alzheimer's Disease |
title_sort | have i been here? sense of location in people with alzheimer's disease |
topic | Neuroscience |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7756125/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33362529 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2020.582525 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT paimingchyi haveibeenheresenseoflocationinpeoplewithalzheimersdisease AT janshaushiun haveibeenheresenseoflocationinpeoplewithalzheimersdisease |