From Morris Water Maze to computer tests in the prediction of Alzheimer's disease.

BACKGROUND: Spatial navigation performance in the Hidden Goal Task (HGT), a real-space human analogue of the Morris Water Maze, can identify amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) patients with memory impairment of the hippocampal type, a known indicator of incipient Alzheimer's disease (AD). OBJECTIVE: Contrast results from computer versus real-space versions of the HGT. METHODS: A total of 42 aMCI patients were clinically and neuropsychologically classified into: (1) memory impairment of the hippocampal type--the hippocampal aMCI (HaMCI; n = 10) and (2) isolated retrieval impairment--the nonhippocampal aMCI (NHaMCI; n = 32). Results were compared to the control (n = 28) and AD (n = 21) groups. RESULTS: The HaMCI group, although similar to the NHaMCI group with respect to overall cognitive impairment, performed poorer on the computer version of the HGT and yielded parallel results to the real-space version. The two versions were strongly correlated. CONCLUSIONS: Both versions of the HGT can reliably identify aMCI with pronounced memory impairment of the hippocampal type. The computer version of the HGT may be a useful, relatively inexpensive screening tool for early detection of individuals at a high risk of AD.

Human analogue of the morris water maze for testing subjects at risk of Alzheimer's disease.

BACKGROUND: Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have difficulties with spatial orientation. OBJECTIVE: To test hypothesis that spatial navigation is impaired early in MCI patients representing the presymptomatic stage of AD. METHODS: We tested patients with probable AD (n = 21), MCI, further classified according to Petersen's criteria as amnestic MCI (aMCI) single domain (n = 11), aMCI multiple domain (n = 31), or nonamnestic MCI (n = 7). The aMCI group was also stratified using cued recall according to Dubois' criteria into memory impairment of the hippocampal type (n = 10) and isolated memory retrieval impairment-nonhippocampal (n = 32) and also according to ApoE4 status into E4+ (n = 12) and E4- (n = 30). These patients and controls (n = 28) were tested in the human variant of the Morris water maze. Depending on the subtest, the subjects could use the egocentric or allocentric (hippocampus-dependent) navigation. RESULTS: The AD and aMCI multiple domain groups were impaired in all subtests. The aMCI single domain group was impaired in allocentric subtests. The hippocampal MCI group performed poorer than the nonhippocampal MCI group and similarly to the AD group. The ApoE4+ group was as bad as the AD group when compared with the E4- group. CONCLUSION: aMCI subjects represent a very heterogeneous population, and spatial memory or cued recall examination can add more value to aMCI classification. ApoE4+ patients are more impaired than ApoE4- patients.