Write 7 pages with APA style on Alzheimers disease and Its Neural Correlates. Several studies have tried to understand the disease by utilizing the method of neuroimaging since neuroimaging is extremely accurate. Most of the studies have concentrated on understanding the reasons behind the delusions that are elicited. Ismail et al (2002), presented a review paper where 23 such studies have been thoroughly reviewed. Majority of the studies have concluded right-sided pathology with special emphasis on the frontal lobe.” Left-frontal predominance and release, secondary to right-sided pathology, may create a hyperinferential state resulting in the formation of delusions” and such imbalances that arise in normal neural networking has been associated with the delusions. Different neural substrates have been shown to be associated with delusional problems such as paranoia and misidentification. Trail-Making Test on 20 subjects showed that executive functioning is impaired in patients with AD (Hunt et al,2011). Positron emission tomography along with neuropsychological testing established that different TMT tests could be correlated to glucose metabolism primarily in the frontal lobe.
One of the major problems that have been associated with the disease is a language problem. Scientists have tried to identify the relation between neural correlates and the problem of languages such as naming and fluency. Several studies had been conducted on subjects to understand the phenomenon and Melrose et al (2009) conducted an experiment on 60 patients with potential Alzheimer’s diseases to help associate the disease to language impairments. The subjects were assessed using the Boston naming Test with FAS and semantic fluency. Phonemic cueing was used for extra words that had been stated. The results revealed that owing to hypermetabolism in the inferior temporal lobe region, subjects were unable to name a particular object. however, it was seen that when the phonemic cue was used there was higher metabolism in the inferior frontal gyrus, superior frontal lobe, left temporal and occipital areas leading to better performance during naming. Semantic problems could also be related to hypometabolism in the inferior frontal gyrus. Hence, the language problems that have been associated with the disease is related to the growing compromise between the frontal regions and the temporal regions.
