Application of event-related potential in Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the major diseases that harmful to healthy elderly, and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is the early clinical stage of AD. There is a lag in the clinical diagnosis of both diseases. An objective and reliable auxiliary diagnostic method is urgently needed to provide early diagnosis and differential indicators for AD and MCI, to predict the probability of individuals suffering from AD and MCI transforming into AD, and to reduce the overall incidence of AD and reduce the huge medical and economic burden for the country and society. Event-related potential is widely used in AD and MCI, and the resolution at the millisecond level can truly reflect the time course of cognitive processing and the degree of impairment of cognitive function in patients. In this study, we investigated the differences in the amplitude and latency of ERP components in healthy elderly, MCI and AD patients, and the correlation between ERP components and cognitive impairment. Early N170 and P200 showed high sensitivity and specificity in differentiating MCI from healthy elderly or MCI from AD. The late perception-related ERPs also showed high sensitivity and specificity in differentiating healthy elderly from MCI/AD. The differences in ERPs between MCI and AD may be related to the etiology, the degree of disease progression and the site of brain damage. The specific brain mechanism still need to be further explored and will be the focus of future research. With the progress of the research, the relationship between the specific ERP manifestations and the mechanism of brain injury as well as the impairment of cognitive function will be more clear. It is believed that the application of ERP in clinical will bring more benefits to AD and its early clinical MCI.