Broad-band visual capacities are not selectively impaired in Alzheimer's disease

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Histological examination of the optic nerves of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients has revealed a selective degeneration of large axon ganglion cells. This morphological abnormality raises the possibility of a selective impairment of broad-band channel visual function. To test this hypothesis, we administered visual psychophysical tests associated with either the color-opponent or the broad-band retinocortical channel to 14 AD patients and 29 elderly control subjects (ECS). In previous studies in monkeys, these tests had been sensitive to the effects of either parvocellular or magnocellular LGN lesions. In the present study, the color-opponent channel was assessed by tests of texture and color discrimination; the broad-band channel was assessed by tests of flicker and motion detection. Logistic regression analysis indicated that all tests collectively discriminated diagnostic groups at a borderline level of significance ( p = 0.09). ANOVA also indicated a trend towards overall depressed function for AD patients on some capacities tested. Analyses comparing the prevalence of deficits in the AD and ECS groups showed that a significantly greater number of AD patients than ECS had deficits on texture discrimination, blue-violet discrimination, and 4.72°/s motion detection. No individual subject demonstrated a selective impairment of broad-band channel function. The visual deficits in AD did not resemble those caused by lesions of magnocellular LGN in monkeys, indicating that the visual impairment in AD is not a functional reflection of damage limited to the broad-band channel. Rather, the perceptual deficits we observed may be due to neuropathological changes in visual association cortices, particularly the ventral visual pathway, in which parvocellular as well as magnocellular capacities are represented. The deficits are found in a subset of AD patients, suggesting that they are not an obligatory correlate of mild to moderate AD but, instead, reflect individual differences in the distribution of neuropathological changes in visual cortices.