Neurobiology of Aging
Volume 30, Issue 6 , Pages 875-889, June 2009

Specificity of inhibitory deficits in normal aging and Alzheimer's disease

  • Fabienne Collette

      Affiliations

    • Cognitive Sciences Department, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
    • Cyclotron Research Center, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
    • Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique, Belgium
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author at: Neuropsychology Unit, University of Liège, Boulevard du Rectorat 3 (B33), 4000 Liège, Belgium. Tel.: +32 4 366 22 74; fax: +32 4 366 28 75.
    • ,
  • Christina Schmidt

      Affiliations

    • Cognitive Sciences Department, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
    • Cyclotron Research Center, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
    • Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique, Belgium
    • ,
  • Christine Scherrer

      Affiliations

    • Cognitive Sciences Department, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
    • ,
  • Stéphane Adam

      Affiliations

    • Cognitive Sciences Department, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
    • ,
  • Eric Salmon

      Affiliations

    • Cyclotron Research Center, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
    • Neurology Department, CHU, Liège, Belgium

Received 24 January 2007; received in revised form 24 August 2007; accepted 18 September 2007. published online 29 October 2007.

Abstract 

Deficits of suppression abilities are frequently observed in normal aging and Alzheimer's disease. However, few studies have explored these deficits in the two populations simultaneously using a large battery of tasks. The aim of the present study was to explore if the pattern of performance presented by elderly subjects and AD patients is in agreement with theoretical frameworks [Wilson, S.P., Harnishfeger, K.K., 1998. The development of efficient inhibition: Evidence from directed forgetting tasks. Dev. Rev. 18, 86–123; see also Nigg J.T., 2000. On inhibition/disinhibition in developmental psychopathology: views from cognitive and personality psychology and a working inhibition taxonomy. Psychol. Bull. 126, 220–246], distinguishing between the concepts of inhibition (a voluntary suppression of irrelevant information) and interference (an automatic suppression process occurring prior to conscious awareness). The results obtained demonstrated that (1) there is an alteration of the inhibitory process in normal elderly subjects; (2) inhibitory and interference resolution processes are quantitately less efficient in AD, since these patients present a correct performance only for information which leaves weak traces in memory.

Keywords: Inhibition, Interference resolution, Normal aging, Alzheimer's disease, Executive functions

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PII: S0197-4580(07)00380-6

doi:10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2007.09.007

Neurobiology of Aging
Volume 30, Issue 6 , Pages 875-889, June 2009

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