RESUMEN
Objectives@#When elderly patients show depressive symptoms, discrimination between depressive disorder and prodromal phase of Alzheimer’s disease is important. We tested whether a quantitative electroencephalogram (qEEG) marker was associated with cerebral amyloid-β (Aβ) deposition in older adults with depression. @*Methods@#Non-demented older individuals (≥ 55years) diagnosed with depression were included in the analyses (n = 63;76.2% female; mean age ± standard deviation 73.7 ± 6.87 years). The participants were divided into Aβ+ (n = 32) and Aβ- (n = 31) groups based on amyloid PET assessment. EEG was recorded during the 7min eye-closed (EC) phase and 3min eye-open (EO) phase, and all EEG data were analyzed using Fourier transform spectral analysis. We tested interaction effects among Aβ positivity, condition (EC vs. EO), laterality (left, midline, or right), and polarity (frontal, central, or posterior) for EEG alpha band power.Then, the EC-to-EO alpha reactivity index (ARI) was examined as a neurophysiological marker for predicting Aβ+ in depressed older adults. @*Results@#The mean power spectral density of the alpha band in EO phase showed a significant difference between the Aβ+ and Aβ- groups (F = 6.258, p = 0.015). A significant 3-way interaction was observed among Aβ positivity, condition, and laterality on alpha-band power after adjusting for age, sex, educational years, global cognitive function, medication use, and white matter hyperintensities on MRI (F = 3.720, p = 0.030). However, post-hoc analyses showed no significant difference in ARI according to Aβ status in any regions of interest. @*Conclusion@#Among older adults with depression, increased power in EO phase alpha band was associated with Aβ positivity.However, EC-to-EO ARI was not confirmed as a predictor for Aβ+ in depressed older individuals. Future studies with larger samples are needed to confirm our results.
RESUMEN
In this study, we investigated where the sex differences of object-location binding memory performance were influenced by the cognitive load. We used the fractal objects version of the ‘What was where?’ task to measure object memory, location memory and objection-location binding memory. Cognitive load was controlled by task difficulty presented two sessions: one session randomly displayed three or four fractal objects (Session 34) and the other session four or five objects (Session 45). The results showed that females outperformed males on object-location binding memory. Interestingly, even when the four object trials were compared between Session 34 and Session 45, in which we believed that the level of difficulty was similar while cognitive load varied, the swap error of males was significantly increased in Session 45 compared to females. In conclusion, there may be sex differences in object-location binding memory and the males could be more sensitive about the cognitive load than females.