Effect of emotional valence on true and false recognition controlling arousal.

The aim of our experiment was to analyse the effect of the emotional valence (positive, negative, or neutral) on true and false recognition, matching the arousal, frequency, concreteness, and associative strength of the study and recognition words. Fifty younger adults and 46 healthy older adults performed three study tasks (with words of different valence: positive, negative, neutral) and their corresponding recognition tests. Two weeks later, they performed the three recognition tests again. The results show that words with a negative valence produced less true recognition and less false recognition than words with a positive or neutral valence, in both younger and older adults, on the immediate recognition test. This pattern of results was also found in the younger adults on the delayed recognition test, whereas in the older participants, these differences disappeared. Thus, when arousal is controlled, both younger and older adults tend to recognise negative information worse than positive or neutral information, but they also commit fewer errors. Results would suggest that the greater arousal commonly associated with negative stimuli, rather than their own valence, could explain some of the contradictory results found in the literature.

Executive Functions, Episodic Autobiographical Memory, Problem-Solving Capacity, and Depression Proposal for a Structural Equations Model.

The executive functions play an important role in storing and recovering autobiographical memories, especially episodic memories. These types of memories provide information about solutions and experiences from the past that can be utilized as examples in the present when seeking solutions to any problem. In addition, a close relationship between depression and the executive functions has been widely recognized. This study aims to elaborate a structural equations model that empirically supports the relationships among the executive functions, episodic autobiographical memory, and the adaptive capacity to solve problems, taking into account the depressed mood state. In all, 32 healthy elderly people, 32 patients with Parkinson disease, 32 with amnestic mild cognitive impairment, and 32 with Alzheimer disease were evaluated. Structural equation models were estimated to test the effects among the constructs. The final model shows adequate fit indexes, thus revealing that an individual's problem-solving capacity will depend on the capacity to access the episodic autobiographical memory, which in turn will depend on the maintenance of executive functioning. In a parallel way, the mood state, and specifically depression, will play a modulator role because when there is depressive symptomatology, some capacities that depend on executive control can be diminished.

Phonological false recognition produced by bottom-up automatic activation in young and older people.

Two experiments explored a new procedure to implicitly induce phonological false memories in young and older people. On the study tasks, half of the words were formed from half of the letters in the alphabet, whereas the remaining words were formed from all the letters in the alphabet. On the recognition tests, there were three types of non-studied new words: critical lures formed from the same half of the letters as the studied words; distractors formed from the other half of the letters not used, and distractors formed from all the letters in the alphabet. In both experiments, the results showed that, in both young and older people, critical lures produced more false recognitions than distractors composed of all the letters in the alphabet, which, in turn, produced more false alarms than distractors composed of the letters not used during the study. These results support the predictions of the activation/monitoring models, which assume that false memories are partly due to activation spreading from items (semantically or phonologically) related to the critical words.

Motivated forgetting reduces veridical memories but slightly increases false memories in both young and healthy older people.

The aim of the current study is to examine the effects of motivated forgetting and aging on true and false memory. Sixty young and 54 healthy older adults were instructed to study two lists of 18 words each. Each list was composed of three sets of six words associated with three non-presented critical words. After studying list 1, half of the participants received the instruction to forget List 1, whereas the other half received the instruction to remember List 1. Next, all the subjects studied list 2; finally, they were asked to remember the words studied in both lists. The results showed that when participants intended to forget the studied List 1, they were less likely to recall the studied words, but more likely to intrude the critical words. That is, we can intentionally forget something but this can also entail the intrusion of some related false memories.

Complexity analysis of cortical surface detects changes in future Alzheimer's disease converters.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurological disorder that creates neurodegenerative changes at several structural and functional levels in human brain tissue. The fractal dimension (FD) is a quantitative parameter that characterizes the morphometric variability of the human brain. In this study, we investigate spherical harmonic-based FD (SHFD), thickness, and local gyrification index (LGI) to assess whether they identify cortical surface abnormalities toward the conversion to AD. We study 33 AD patients, 122 mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients (50 MCI converters and 29 MCI nonconverters), and 32 healthy controls (HC). SHFD, thickness, and LGI methodology allowed us to perform not only global level but also local level assessments in each cortical surface vertex. First, we found that global SHFD decreased in AD and future MCI converters compared to HC, and in MCI converters compared to MCI nonconverters. Second, we found that local white matter SHFD was reduced in AD compared to HC and MCI mainly in medial temporal lobe. Third, local white-matter SHFD was significantly reduced in MCI converters compared to MCI nonconverters in distributed areas, including the medial frontal lobe. Thickness and LGI metrics presented a reduction in AD compared to HC. Thickness was significantly reduced in MCI converters compared to healthy controls in entorhinal cortex and lateral temporal. In summary, SHFD was the only surface measure showing differences between MCI individuals that will convert or remain stable in the next 4 years. We suggest that SHFD may be an optimal complement to thickness loss analysis in monitoring longitudinal changes in preclinical and clinical stages of AD. Hum Brain Mapp 38:5905-5918, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

False memories in Lewy-body disease.

Recently, de Boysson, Belleville, Phillips et al. (2011) found that patients with Lewy-body disease (LBD) showed significantly lower rates of false memories than healthy controls, using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) experimental procedure. Given that this result could be explained by the practically null rate of true recognition in the LBD group (0.09), we decided to replicate the study by de Boysson et al. (2011), but including a new condition that would maximize the true recognition rate (and analyze its effect on the rate of false memories). Specifically, in a DRM experiment, we manipulated (within subjects) two study and recognition conditions: in the "immediate" condition, both the LBD patients and the control group of healthy older people received a different recognition test after each study list (containing twelve words associated with a non-presented critical word), while in the "delayed" condition (similar to the one in de Boysson et al., 2011), the participants received the entire series of study lists and then took only one recognition test. The results showed that, in both samples, the "immediate" condition produced higher corrected rates of both true and false recognition than the "delayed" condition, although they were both lower in the LBD patients, which shows that these patients are capable of encoding and recognizing the general similitude underlying information (gist memory) in the right conditions.

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Intervention in Alzheimer's Disease and Its Follow-Up.

BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's disease (AD) stands as the prevailing type of dementia, marked by gradual memory loss and cognitive decline. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive method used to regulate cortical brain function and has been explored as a potential treatment for cognitive impairment. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to compare the effects of daily home-based active or sham tDCS on cognitive function in patients with early-stage AD and its follow-up after one month. METHODS: The study involved a randomized, blinded, and controlled-placebo design, with 18 participants enrolled. The primary outcome measures were general cognitive function, immediate, and delayed recall, and executive function. Participants included in the study were randomly assigned to the anodal and sham tDCS groups. Participants were assessed before and after the intervention and one month after the end of treatment. The home-based intervention was applied for 5 consecutive days, daily. RESULTS: The results showed a significant interaction between the active and sham groups; in particular, improvements in MMSE scores, immediate memory and delayed recall were observed at one-month follow-up in the active group. CONCLUSIONS: The positive effects of tDCS on cognitive function in AD patients observed suggest that tDCS may induce long-term neuroplastic changes, leading to sustained improvements in cognitive abilities.

Study of the diagnostic efficiency of anti-ZnT8 autoantibodies for type 1 diabetes in pediatric patients.

OBJECTIVE: Zinc transporter 8 autoantibodies (ZNt8A) are 1 of the 4 main autoantibodies used for the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes (T1D), with glutamic acid decarboxylase autoantibodies (GADA), islet antigen-2 autoantibodies (IA-2A), and insulin autoantibodies (IAA). The objective of this study is to evaluate the diagnostic efficiency of these autoantibodies for the diagnosis of T1D in pediatric patients. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of patients under 16 years of age with suspected T1D was made between June 2020 and January 2021. A total of 80 patients were included in the study, with 1 sample per patient. Subjects were classified according to diagnosis. RESULTS: Of the subjects included in the study, 50 developed T1D. The diagnostic efficacy was IA-2A (cutoff ≥ 28 U/L) sensitivity 0.26 (95% CI: 0.14-0.38) and specificity 0.97 (95% CI: 0.79-1.0); GADA (cutoff ≥ 17 U/mL) sensitivity 0.40 (95% CI: 0.26-0.54) and specificity 0.87 (95% CI: 0.75-0.99); ZnT8A (cut off ≥ 15 U/L) sensitivity 0.62 (95% CI: 0.49-0.75) and specificity 0.97 (95% CI: 0.90-1.0). ZnT8A obtained the most significantly global diagnostic accuracy (0.75), and GADA with ZnT8A showed the highest correlation. CONCLUSION: The results obtained indicate a higher efficiency of anti-ZnT8 autoantibodies for the diagnosis of T1D in pediatric patients. Clinical efficiency of diabetic autoantibodies is method and assay dependent and influences combined diagnostic strategies.

Use of a barbed suture for the urethro-vesical anastomosis during the learning curve of the endoscopic extraperitoneal radical prostatectomy.

OBJECTIVES: The performance of the urethrovesical anastomosis is one of the most difficult steps in urologic laparoscopy. Many different techniques have been developed to improve this step and, recently, new sutures such as the V-loc (R) barbed system have been created. In the present study we analyze the usefulness of this suture for diminishing the time employed for the anastomosis suture during the learning curve of laparoscopic radical prostatectomy. METHOD: We performed a prospective comparative study between two groups. The first group included the first 50 cases of a novel surgeon using this barbed suture, and we compared these procedures with 50 consecutives cases of an experienced surgeon. We compared preoperative parameters, surgical and suturing times, as well as drain and catheter duration, and hospital stay. RESULTS: We did not find statistically significant differences in any pre or postoperative parameters between both groups. Although surgical time was lower in the control group this difference was not statistically significant. The time used to perform the suture was lower in the study group, and we found significant differences between both groups. Neither drain nor bladder catheter times were different between groups. CONCLUSIONS: In the absence of prospective randomized trials comparing barbed or not barbed running sutures, our study shows that the use of the V-loc® system improves the times needed for the urethrovesical anastomosis during the learning curve of laparoscopic radical prostatectomy.

Importance of previous transurethral resection of the prostate before eerpe.short-term functional outcomes in a single surgeon series.

OBJECTIVES: Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy (LRP) is technically a very demanding procedure and potentially even more challenging in patients with previous transurethral resection (TURP). This study evaluates the impact of previous TURP on the short-term functional outcome of patients undergoing extraperitoneal LRP. METHODS: Retrospective analysis of a prospectively collected database, comprising a single-surgeon cohort of 155 consecutive LRP cases, 19 of which had previous history of TURP. Demographics, clinical and functional outcomes were evaluated and compared among patients with and without previous TURP. Multivariate analysis was performed to identify potential variables independently associated with continence outcomes. Incontinence was defined as the need of more than 1 pad/day. Potency was defined as the ability for sexual intercourse with or without the use of phosphodiesterase inhibitors. RESULTS: Demographic and clinical variables were comparable among the two study groups. Neurovascular bundle preservation was possible in 26% and 37% of patients with and without previous TURP, respectively. No major complications were recorded and the incidence of minor complications was comparable. Overall continence rate at 3 months was 82,58%, for the entire cohort. Subset analysis demonstrated a 3-month continence rate of 73.7% vs. 83.8% (p>0.05) in patients with and without TURP, respectively. Multivariate analysis demonstrated age, BMI and ASA were variables independently associated with continence outcomes. In the cohort of patients with previous TURP, 2 out of 7 undergoing preservation recovered erections, with a mean follow up of 15.5 months, comparable to the 30% achieved in patients without TURP and nerve sparing procedure. CONCLUSIONS: Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy in patients with previous TURP is feasible, with complication rates and short-term functional outcomes comparable to those in patients without previous resection.

Enhancing Immediate Memory, Potential Learning, and Working Memory with Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Healthy Older Adults.

BACKGROUND: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has emerged as a prevention method or minimizer of the normal cognitive deterioration that occurs during the aging process. tDCS can be used to enhance cognitive functions such as immediate memory, learning, or working memory in healthy subjects. The objective of this study was to analyze the effect of two 20-min sessions of anodal transcranial direct stimulation on immediate memory, learning potential, and working memory in healthy older adults. METHODS: A randomized, single-blind, repeated-measures, sham-controlled design was used. The sample is made up of 31 healthy older adults, of whom 16 were in the stimulation group and 15 were in the sham group. The anode was placed on position F7, coinciding with the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex region, and the cathode was placed on Fp2, the right supraorbital area (rSO). RESULTS: When comparing the results of the treatment group and the sham group, differences were observed in working memory and learning potential; however, no differences in immediate memory were found. CONCLUSION: The results showed that tDCS is a non-invasive and safe tool to enhance cognitive processes in healthy older adults interested in maintaining some cognitive function.

Genistein effect on cognition in prodromal Alzheimer's disease patients. The GENIAL clinical trial.

BACKGROUND: Delaying the transition from minimal cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's dementia is a major concern in Alzheimer's disease (AD) therapeutics. Pathological signs of AD occur years before the onset of clinical dementia. Thus, long-term therapeutic approaches, with safe, minimally invasive, and yet effective substances are recommended. There is a need to develop new drugs to delay Alzheimer's dementia. We have taken a nutritional supplement approach with genistein, a chemically defined polyphenol that acts by multimodal specific mechanisms. Our group previously showed that genistein supplementation is effective to treat the double transgenic (APP/PS1) AD animal model. METHODS: In this double-blind, placebo-controlled, bicentric clinical trial, we evaluated the effect of daily oral supplementation with 120 mg of genistein for 12 months on 24 prodromal Alzheimer's disease patients. The amyloid-beta deposition was analyzed using 18F-flutemetamol uptake. We used a battery of validated neurocognitive tests: Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE), Memory Alteration Test (M@T), Clock Drawing Test, Complutense Verbal Learning Test (TAVEC), Barcelona Test-Revised (TBR), and Rey Complex Figure Test. RESULTS: We report that genistein treatment results in a significant improvement in two of the tests used (dichotomized direct TAVEC, p = 0.031; dichotomized delayed Centil REY copy p = 0.002 and a tendency to improve in all the rest of them. The amyloid-beta deposition analysis showed that genistein-treated patients did not increase their uptake in the anterior cingulate gyrus after treatment (p = 0.878), while placebo-treated did increase it (p = 0.036). We did not observe significant changes in other brain areas studied. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that genistein may have a role in therapeutics to delay the onset of Alzheimer's dementia in patients with prodromal Alzheimer's disease. These encouraging results indicate that this should be followed up by a new study with more patients to further validate the conclusion that arises from this study. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT01982578, registered on November 13, 2013.

Effectiveness of tDCS at Improving Recognition and Reducing False Memories in Older Adults.

BACKGROUND: False memories tend to increase in healthy and pathological aging, and their reduction could be useful in improving cognitive functioning. The objective of this study was to use an active-placebo method to verify whether the application of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) improved true recognition and reduced false memories in healthy older people. METHOD: Participants were 29 healthy older adults (65-78 years old) that were assigned to either an active or a placebo group; the active group received anodal stimulation at 2 mA for 20 min over F7. An experimental task was used to estimate true and false recognition. The procedure took place in two sessions on two consecutive days. RESULTS: True recognition showed a significant main effect of sessions (p < 0.01), indicating an increase from before treatment to after it. False recognition showed a significant main effect of sessions (p < 0.01), indicating a decrease from before treatment to after it and a significant session × group interaction (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our results show that tDCS was an effective tool for increasing true recognition and reducing false recognition in healthy older people, and suggest that stimulation improved recall by increasing the number of items a participant could recall and reducing the number of memory errors.

Our experience in the treatment of male stress urinary incontinence with the male Remeex system.

OBJECTIVES: We show our experience in the treatment of post-prostatectomy stress urinary incontinence with the male Remeex system (MRS). We also describe the elements of the system, its therapeutic indications, technical implantation and appropriate adjustment. METHODS: From March 2007 to January 2009 five male patients aged 57 to 71 years (mean age 66 years) with postprostatectomy stress urinary incontinence were operated on to insert a suburethral readjustable sling (Remeex). All patients had severe urinary incontinence with deterioration of their quality of life. The evolution period ranged from 2 to 10 years with an average of 3.5 years, requiring from 5 to 8 pads a day. RESULTS: All patients are continent after a mean follow up of 15.4 months (range 6-28 months). Only two of them use one security pad when they perform physical efforts. The Incontinence Impact Questionnaire (7) scores before surgery and 6 months after diminished from 68+/-7 to 10+/-3. All patients are very satisfied. CONCLUSIONS: MRS is a valid therapeutic option for post-prostatectomy incontinence, being a reproducible technique, of easy execution, that allows readjustment through a suprapubic incision under local anesthesia as an outpatient procedure. It has a low complication rate with excellent and endured results.

Conflict monitoring on an emotional Stroop task. Comparison of healthy older adults and patients with major neurocognitive disorders due to probable AD.

INTRODUCTION: The conflict monitoring system exerts an influence on centers responsible for cognitive control, causing them to intervene more strongly in processing when conflict occurs. These mechanisms are usually investigated through specific tasks where there is an inherent interference elicited by the congruency or incongruency between the stimuli and responses, such as the Stroop task. In studies of emotional conflict, one hypothesis related to the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is that it serves, in part, to signal the appearance of conflicts, thus triggering compensatory adjustments. This study aims to verify whether the conflict monitoring hypothesis is confirmed in a group with Alzheimer's disease and, therefore, whether they exhibit a reduction in their reaction times. METHOD: A group of healthy older adults (HOA) and a group with Major Neurocognitive Disorders due to probable AD were evaluated to test the conflict monitoring hypothesis with an emotional Stroop task. RESULTS: A significant interaction was obtained on the word and faces blocks. In the HOA group, a reduction in reaction times was observed, whereas in the AD groups, no reduction in reaction times was obtained. CONCLUSIONS: Whereas in HOA the conflict monitoring hypothesis is confirmed, in the Major Neurocognitive Disorders due to probable AD group there is no reduction in their reaction times on the high conflict resolution trials (incongruent trials that follow incongruent trials) due to their difficulty in making compensatory adjustments to cognitive control that help them to reduce conflict and improve their success rate.

Phonological false recognition, recollection, and familiarity in healthy aging and Alzheimer's disease.

BACKGROUND: Thirty healthy older people, 20 Alzheimer's disease patients (matched on age and education level) and 33 young people, participated in an experiment to implicitly induce phonological false memories, allowing us to obtain estimates of their recollection, familiarity, and false recognition. METHOD: In the study task, words were selected which used half of the letters in the alphabet. In the recognition test, there were three types of non-studied new words: critical lures using letters from the same half of the alphabet as the study task words; distractors formed using the unused half of the alphabet, and distractors formed using all the letters in the alphabet. RESULTS: Results showed that: (a) in all the samples, critical lures produced more false recognitions than distractors composed of all the letters in the alphabet or distractors composed of the letters not used in the study, showing a significant phonological false recognition effect; (b) both recollection and familiarity declined with age and dementia; (c) phonological false recognition increased with age and Alzheimer's disease. CONCLUSIONS: These results seem to support the idea that estimates of recollection, familiarity, and phonological false recognition can be used as early markers of cognitive impairment.

A cross-sectional and longitudinal study on the protective effect of bilingualism against dementia using brain atrophy and cognitive measures.

BACKGROUND: Evidence from previous studies suggests that bilingualism contributes to cognitive reserve because bilinguals manifest the first symptoms of Alzheimer's disease (AD) up to 5 years later than monolinguals. Other cross-sectional studies demonstrate that bilinguals show greater amounts of brain atrophy and hypometabolism than monolinguals, despite sharing the same diagnosis and suffering from the same symptoms. However, these studies may be biased by possible pre-existing between-group differences. METHODS: In this study, we used global parenchymal measures of atrophy and cognitive tests to investigate the protective effect of bilingualism against dementia cross-sectionally and prospectively, using a sample of bilinguals and monolinguals in the same clinical stage and matched on sociodemographic variables. RESULTS: Our results suggest that the two groups did not differ in their cognitive status at baseline, but bilinguals had less parenchymal volume than monolinguals, especially in areas related to brain atrophy in dementia. In addition, a longitudinal prospective analysis revealed that monolinguals lost more parenchyma and had more cognitive decline than bilinguals in a mean follow-up period of 7 months. CONCLUSION: These results provide the first prospective evidence that bilingualism may act as a neuroprotective factor against dementia and could be considered a factor in cognitive reserve.

Distance disintegration delineates the brain connectivity failure of Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is associated with brain network dysfunction. Network-based investigations of brain connectivity have mainly focused on alterations in the strength of connectivity; however, the network breakdown in AD spectrum is a complex scenario in which multiple pathways of connectivity are affected. To integrate connectivity changes that occur under AD-related conditions, here we developed a novel metric that computes the connectivity distance between cortical regions at the voxel level (or nodes). We studied 114 individuals with mild cognitive impairment, 24 with AD, and 27 healthy controls. Results showed that areas of the default mode network, salience network, and frontoparietal network display a remarkable network separation, or greater connectivity distances, from the rest of the brain. Furthermore, this greater connectivity distance was associated with lower global cognition. Overall, the investigation of AD-related changes in paths and distances of connectivity provides a novel framework for characterizing subjects with cognitive impairment; a framework that integrates the overall network topology changes of the brain and avoids biases toward unreferenced connectivity effects.

[Green light laser efficacy in patients with prostatic hyperplasia treatment with 5-alpha reductase inhibitors]. / Eficacia de la fotovaporización prostática con láser verde en el tratamiento de la hiperplasia prostática en pacientes en tratamiento con inhibidores de la 5-alfa-reductasa.

INTRODUCTION: High prevalence of BPH and gradual ageing of the population, combined with the existence of effective medical treatments for this condition, has led to an increasing use of surgery in patients on long-term treatment with 5-alpha reductase inhibitors (5-ARIs). Initially, patients treated with 5-ARIs were not considered good candidates for photoselective vaporization of the prostate with green laser. OBJECTIVE: To assess, using a retrospective study based on our experience, wheter long-term treatment (longer than 6 months) with 5-alpha reductase inhibitors decreases effectiveness of photoselective vaporization of the prostate with green light laser in BPH. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From September 2005 to January 2008, 102 patients underwent photoselective vaporization of the prostate with green light laser. Of these, 25 patients (24.5%) had been treated with 5-ARIs for at least 6 months, and the remaining 77 patients (75.5%) were used as controls. A retrospective study was conducted to compare the pre- and postoperative clinical and functional parameters of patients with and without prior 5-RAI therapy. RESULTS: No statistically significant differences were found between the treated and control groups in preoperative prostatic volume (50 mL vs 49 mL), IPSS (17.6 vs 17.8), postvoiding residue (16% vs 18%), or PSA (1.4 ng/mL vs 2.2 ng/mL). Similarly, while differences were seen in energy spread (180 kJ vs 175 kJ for the treated and control groups respectively) and operating time (63 min vs 57 min), these were not statistically significant. No between-group differences were found either in clinical or flow rate parameters one month after surgery (IPSS 13.8 vs 14 and Qmax 13.9 mL/s vs 14.5 nL/s in the treated and control groups respectively). Surgeons reported a better visualization of the endoscopic field that was attributed to less bleeding during the procedure. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show no statistically significant differences in peroperative and preoperative parameters between patients with and without treatment with 5-alpha reductase inhibitors. We therefore think that photoselective vaporization of the prostate with green light laser is a safe and effective technique in patients treated with 5-ARIs.

Type of memory and emotional valence in healthy aging, mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer's disease.

BACKGROUND: Autobiographical memory (AM) presents components related to the type of memory and may present an associated emotional valence. Comparing healthy older adults, adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and adults with Alzheimer's disease (AD) gives contradictory results. We examined AM in these groups to analyze differences and provide information that would contribute to the understanding of AM and associated emotional deficits in patients. METHOD: 31 AD, 32 MCI, and 32 healthy older adults were evaluated using the Autobiographical Memory Test. Taking the number of memories elicited in each category as a dependent variable, an ANOVA of three groups x 3 types of valence was applied (positive, negative, neutral, intrasubject), and another ANOVA of 3 groups x 3 types of memory (specific, general, vague, intrasubject). RESULTS: Specific-type responses are reduced with the progression of the pathology and in addition healthy subjects have a positive valence while AD presents a mainly neutral valence. CONCLUSIONS: Cognitive problems associated with aging tend to affect the highest level of AM specificity. Healthy subjects and MCI have memories with an emotional valence, whereas the AD group has a significant deterioration in these memories.