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Attentional network changes in subjective cognitive decline

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Abstract

Background

Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) is known as the intermediate stage between normal cognitive aging and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Although elderly with SCD usually perform close to normal in standardized tests, the detailed function of attention networks in this group has not been studied yet.

Aims

The purpose of this study was to investigate the performance of attention networks, as a possible indicator of cognitive disorder, in older individuals with subjective memory complaint and MCI.

Method

The attention network test (ANT) was used to examine and compare the performance of three attention networks of alerting, orientation, and executive control in 17 elderly with SCD, 30 multiple domain amnestic MCI subjects, and 15 healthy controls.

Results

Although the orienting network had almost the same performance in all groups (p = 0.25), the performance of alerting (p = 0.01) and executive control networks (p = 0.02) were significantly different among the three groups: the SCD group performed poorly in both networks compared with the controls and did not differ significantly from the MCI group (p ≥ 0.05). However, controlling for general age-related slowing abolished the group difference in executive control index. More importantly, our results showed that alerting network that was affected in SCD group had high sensitivity in differentiating this group from controls (0.94%).

Conclusion

Our data suggest that despite normal performance in neuropsychological tests, the SCD elderly may face significant degrees of attention processing problems, especially in maintaining alerting to external stimuli which might be helpful in diagnosing individuals at risk and designing proper attention-based interventions.

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Acknowledgements

Authors would like to thank all participants, particularly the patients and their relatives who kindly agreed to participate in the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gerontology and Geriatric Department, Iranian Research Center on Aging, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences (USWR), Tehran, Iran

    Mahdieh Esmaeili, Reza Fadaei Vatan & Mahshid Foroughan

  2. Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

    Vahid Nejati

  3. Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

    Vahid Nejati

  4. Mental Health Research Center, Tehran Institute of Psychiatry, School of Behavioral Sciences and Mental Health, Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS), Tehran, Iran

    Mohsen Shati

  5. Department of Behavioral Sciences and Learning, Linnaeus Centre HEAD, Swedish Institute for Disability Research, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Negin Chehrehnegar

Authors
  1. Mahdieh Esmaeili
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  2. Vahid Nejati
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  3. Mohsen Shati
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  4. Reza Fadaei Vatan
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  6. Mahshid Foroughan
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Correspondence to Mahshid Foroughan.

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Conflict of interest

The authors confirm that there is not any conflict of interest for present study.

Ethical approval

This study was approved by ethics committee of University of Social welfare and rehabilitation sciences (Iran), code: IR.USWR.REC.1395.355.

Informed consent

After a detailed description of the study, written informed consent was obtained from all the participants.

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Esmaeili, M., Nejati, V., Shati, M. et al. Attentional network changes in subjective cognitive decline. Aging Clin Exp Res 34, 847–855 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-021-02005-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-021-02005-8

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