Are Alzheimer's disease patients able to learn visual prototypes?
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Updated: Oct 4, 2026

Examining the Characteristics of Episodic Memory using Event-related Potentials in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease
Published on: August 30, 2011
1Department of Psychiatry, University of Szeged, Semmelweis u. 6, 6725, Szeged, Hungary. szkeri@phys.szote.u-szeged.hu
Abstract:
Recently, controversial results emerged regarding visual prototype learning in Alzheimer's disease (AD). The aim of this study was to elucidate this issue in a larger population of AD patients. The AD patients (N=72) and age-matched healthy control subjects (N=25) learned to recognize and to categorize visual dot patterns. In comparison with the control subjects, the AD patients as a group showed dysfunctions in the recognition task, whereas categorization was relatively spared in their case. Recognition was impaired in patients with mild AD (Mini-Mental score: 18-23) and moderate AD (Mini-Mental score<18), whereas categorization was impaired only in patients with moderate AD. These results suggest that while the medio-temporal/diencephalic explicit memory system is markedly affected even in early AD, the sensory neocortical areas mediating implicit category learning display a sufficient degree of functional capacity until later stages of the disease.
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