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Word-stem priming and recognition in type 2 diabetes mellitus, Alzheimer’s disease patients and healthy older adults

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Abstract

The present study investigated (a) whether the pattern of performance on implicit and explicit memory of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) is more similar to those of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or to cognitively normal older adults and (b) whether glycosylated hemoglobin levels (a measure of glucose regulation) are related to performance on the two memory tasks, implicit word-stem completion and “old–new” recognition. The procedures of both memory tasks included encoding and memory test phases separated by a short delay. Three groups of participants (healthy older adults, DM2 patients and AD patients) completed medical and psychological assessments and performed both memory tasks on a computer. The results of the word-stem completion task showed similar implicit memory in the three groups. By contrast, explicit recognition of the three groups differed. Implicit memory was not affected by either normal or pathological aging, but explicit memory deteriorated in the two groups of patients, especially in AD patients, showing a severe impairment compared to the cognitively healthy older adults. Importantly, glycosylated hemoglobin levels were not related to performance on either implicit or explicit memory tasks. These findings revealed a clear dissociation between explicit and implicit memory tasks in normal and pathological aging. Neuropsychologists and clinicians working with TM2 patients should be aware that the decline of voluntary, long-term explicit memory could have a negative impact on their treatment management. By contrast, the intact implicit memory of the two clinical groups could be used in rehabilitation.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by grants from the Elche Hospital Foundation for Biomedical Research (Proyecto fibelx 09/08) and by the Spanish Government (PSI2013-41409-R) and the Madrid Community Biomedical Research Grant (S2010/BMD-2349). The authors thank all the volunteers who participated in the study. We are grateful to Drs. Miquel Baquero, Daniel Martín, Maribel Pérez and the medical staff of the health centers of Elche for their help in the recruitment of the participants. Finally, we are very grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their helpful and very constructive comments that helped us to improve the article. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Studies on Aging and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Group, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Juan del Rosal 36, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    María Teresa Redondo, José Manuel Reales & Soledad Ballesteros

  2. Conselleria de Sanitat, Valencia, Spain

    María Teresa Redondo & José Luís Beltrán-Brotóns

  3. Centro de Salud Altabix, Antonio Mora Ferrández 51, 03202, Elche, Spain

    María Teresa Redondo & José Luís Beltrán-Brotóns

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  1. María Teresa Redondo
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  2. José Luís Beltrán-Brotóns
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  3. José Manuel Reales
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  4. Soledad Ballesteros
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Correspondence to Soledad Ballesteros.

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Redondo, M.T., Beltrán-Brotóns, J.L., Reales, J.M. et al. Word-stem priming and recognition in type 2 diabetes mellitus, Alzheimer’s disease patients and healthy older adults. Exp Brain Res 233, 3163–3174 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-015-4385-7

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