Influence d’une information émotionnelle négative sur les processus d’engagement et de désengagement dans la Maladie d’Alzheimer : un paradigme de recherche visuelle en eye-tracking

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Agricultural activities and risk of Alzheimer’s disease: the TRACTOR project, a nationwide retrospective cohort study

International audienceData regarding Alzheimer’s disease (AD) occurrence in farming populations is lacking. This study aimed to investigate whether, among the entire French farm manager (FM) workforce, certain agricultural activities are more strongly associated with AD than others, using nationwide data from the TRACTOR (Tracking and monitoring occupational risks in agriculture) project. Administrative health insurance data (digital electronic health/medical records and insurance claims) for the entire French agricultural workforce, over the period 2002–2016, on the entire mainland France were used to estimate the risk of AD for 26 agricultural activities with Cox proportional hazards model. For each analysis (one for each activity), the exposed group included all FMs that performed the activity of interest (e.g. crop farming), while the reference group included all FMs who did not carry out the activity of interest (e.g. FMs that never farmed crops between 2002 and 2016). There were 5067 cases among 1,036,069 FMs who worked at least one year between 2002 and 2016. Analyses showed higher risks of AD for crop farming (hazard ratio (HR) = 3.72 [3.47–3.98]), viticulture (HR = 1.29 [1.18–1.42]), and fruit arboriculture (HR = 1.36 [1.15–1.62]). By contrast, lower risks of AD were found for several animal farming types, in particular for poultry and rabbit farming (HR = 0.29 [0.20–0.44]), ovine and caprine farming (HR = 0.50 [0.41–0.61]), mixed dairy and cow farming (HR = 0.46 [0.37–0.57]), dairy farming (HR = 0.67 [0.61–0.73]), and pig farming (HR = 0.30 [0.18–0.52]). This study shed some light on the association between a wide range of agricultural activities and AD in the entire French FMs populatio

Do patients with Alzheimer’s disease still have a crush on crashes?

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Do patients with Alzheimer’s disease still have a crush on crashes?

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Impact of emotionally negative information on attentional processes in normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease

International audienceImpairments of emotional processing have been reported in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), consistently with the existence of early amygdala atrophy in the pathology. In this study, we hypothesized that patients with AD might show a deficit of orientation toward emotional information under conditions of visual search. Eighteen patients with AD, 24 age-matched controls, and 35 young controls were eye-tracked while they performed a visual search task on a computer screen. The target was a vehicle with implicit (negative or neutral) emotional content, presented concurrently with one, three, or five non-vehicle neutral distractors. The task was to find the target and to report whether a break in the target frame was on the left or on the right side. Both control groups detected negative targets more efficiently than they detected neutral targets, showing facilitated engagement toward negative information. In contrast, patients with AD showed no influence of emotional information on engagement delays. However, all groups reported the frame break location more slowly for negative than for neutral targets (after accounting for the last fixation delay), showing a more difficult disengagement from negative information. These findings are the first to highlight a selective lack of emotional influence on engagement processes in patients with AD. The involvement of amygdala alterations in this behavioral impairment remains to be investigated

Is emotional attention a behavioral marker of amygdala alterations in alzheimer’s disease ?

International audienceThe amygdala, a limbic area crucial in potentiating emotional processing, is atrophied early in Alzheimer’s disease(AD). Yet, the consequences of amygdala alterations on theprocessing of emotional information in patients with ADare still scarcely investigated. Recent behavioral and neuroimaging data suggest that emotional attention may be apromising way of investigation. In this study, we were interested in assessing the link between amygdala structuraland functional alterations and automatic emotional attention toward salient features of faces. Based on previous reports in patients with amygdala lesions, we also investigated the existence of compensatory processes relying onfrontal networks and allowing the preservation of morecontrolled emotional attention mechanisms. Preliminaryresults will be discussed

Impact of emotionally negative information on engagement and disengagement processes in aging: a visual search paradigm in eye-tracking

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Morphologic and neuropsychological patterns in patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

International audienceINTRODUCTION:We conducted a retrospective study to identify morphological subgroups of patients referred for AD or aMCI and to seek for differences across neuropsychological performances.METHODS:One hundred forty-five patients (mean age = 76.01, 88 women and 57 men) referred for AD, either at the stage of dementia or aMCI, were examined using structural MRI. Five observers reviewed blindly twice all examinations. We rated microangiopathy, hippocampal, parietal atrophies, including a gradient of fronto-parietal atrophy (GFPA). A multiple component analysis (MCA) followed by a hierarchical ascending classification was conducted to identify morphologically distinct subgroups. Among these, 76 patients completed all the neuropsychological tests. Univariate and multivariate analyses were further conducted on these data across morphological subgroups. The institutional review board approved the research protocol.RESULTS:Inter- and intra-raters' agreements were excellent and very good for microangiopathy and hippocampal atrophy ratings. They were higher for GFPA than for the parietal atrophy scale. MCA without priors identified three groups: group 1 was characterized by no/discrete microangiopathy, severe hippocampal, and predominant parietal atrophy; group 2 had significant microangiopathy, severe hippocampal atrophy, and no predominant parietal atrophy; group 3 had a mild hippocampal atrophy and parietal atrophies. In group 1, working memory profile was less impaired than in group 2 (p = 0.01). Neuropsychological performances of group 3 were higher in most domains.CONCLUSION:Combined characterization of microangiopathy, hippocampal, parietal, and GFPA allows identifying morphological subgroups among patients referred for AD and at risk. These groups have some neuropsychological differences, suggesting different pathophysiological mechanisms or co-existing conditions

Neurodevelopmental disorders modify neurodegenerative diseases: a medical history to screen in memory clinic

International audienceNeurodevelopmental disorders are frequent in the general population and are often lifelong conditions despite sometimes being masked by conscious or unconscious compensation and avoidance mechanisms. These conditions are often unknown or underestimated in adults, even when diagnosed in childhood. Neurodevelopmental disorders share similarities with and frequently interact in a complex way with neurodegenerative disorders. Considering these aspects during memory clinic assessments can provide a new perspective on lifelong neurocognitive trajectories. Assessing both neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative dimensions is challenging but should improve diagnostic accuracy. It is therefore necessary to understand the lifelong specific neurocognitive trajectory of each patient in order to develop personalized and focused cognitive medicine and care