Cholinergic Modulation of Human Memory and Attention: Functional Neuroimaging Studies

Date de début de l'étude : 1 janvier 2000

Three groups of subjects will be enrolled: Subjects with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) 45-100 years of age; Healthy controls 20-50 years of age; Healthy controls 50-90 years of age. No evidence of, or history of, any medical, neurological or psychiatric condition (other than dementia in the AD patient group) which may affect brain function and metabolism and/or represent a contraindication to the study; including learning disability, psychiatric condition, head trauma with loss of consciousness, seizures or other neurological conditions, alcoholism or substance abuse, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other endocrine diseases, malignancy. No subjects with vision and/or hearing problems severe enough to interfere with testing. No females with a positive pregnancy test. No subjects with contraindications to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), including pacemakers, cochlear implants, surgical clips or metal fragments in their eyes or body parts. Only subjects with good health and without evidence of significant chronic disease will be accepted into the healthy control groups. Only patients without evidence of significant chronic disease who meet standard clinical criteria for the diagnosis of dementia of Alzheimer's disease type will be accepted into the study in the AD group.