Antisaccades: A Probe into the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in Alzheimer's Disease. A Critical Review

Article type: Review Article

Authors: Kaufman, Liam D.^{a; b; *} | Pratt, Jay^c | Levine, Brian^{c; d} | Black, Sandra E.^{a; b; d}

Affiliations: [a] LC Campbell Cognitive Research Unit, Division of Neurology, Deparatment of Medicine, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, University of Toronto Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada | [b] Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada | [c] Department of Psychology University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada | [d] The Rotman Research Institute, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Correspondence: [*] Correspondence to: Liam D. Kaufman, LC Campbell Cognitive Research Unit, Division of Neurology, Dept. of Medicine, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, University of Toronto, Room A421- 2075 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M4N 3M5, Canada. Tel.: +1 416 480 4551; Fax: +1 416 480 4552; E-mail: [email protected].

Abstract: The number of people living with Alzheimer's disease (AD), the major cause of dementia, is projected to increase dramatically over the next few decades, making the search for treatments and tools to measure the progression of AD increasingly urgent. The antisaccade task, a hands- and language-free measure of inhibitory control, has been utilized in AD as a potential diagnostic test. While antisaccades do not appear to differentiate AD from healthy aging better than measures of episodic memory, they may still be beneficial. Specifically, antisaccades may provide not only a functional index of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (DLPFC), which is damaged in the later stages of AD, but also a tool for monitoring the progression of AD. Further work is required to: 1) strengthen the link between antisaccade errors, in AD, with the DLPFC; 2) insure that antisaccade errors do not result from memory, visuospatial, or other deficits associated with AD; and 3) further validate the clinical analogue of the antisaccade task.

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease, antisaccades, dementia, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

DOI: 10.3233/JAD-2010-1275

Journal: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 781-793, 2010