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Effect of cortisol levels on working memory performance in elderly subjects with Alzheimer's disease
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Effect of cortisol levels on working memory performance in elderly subjects with Alzheimer's disease

Juliana Nery de Souza-Talarico, Paulo Caramelli, Ricardo Nitrini and Eliane Corrêa Chaves
Arquivos de neuro-psiquiatria, Vol.66(3b), pp.619-624
01/2008
DOI: 10.1590/S0004-282X2008000500003
PMID: 18949251
url
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0004-282X2008000500003View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Subjects with Alzheimer's disease (AD) have elevated cortisol levels as a result of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dysfunction. Acute administration of hydrocortisone has been associated with working memory (WM) performance in young adults. OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether cortisol levels are associated with WM performance in subjects with AD. METHOD: Eighty subjects were included, comprising 40 patients with mild AD and 40 healthy elderly controls. WM was assessed using the Digit Span Backward test (DSB). Saliva samples were collected to determine cortisol levels. RESULTS: AD subjects had poorer performance on the DSB than controls (p=0.002) and also presented higher levels of cortisol than control group (p=0.04). No significant correlation was observed between the DSB and cortisol levels in both groups (r= -0.29). CONCLUSION: In this study, elevated cortisol levels were not associated with poorer WM performance in patients with AD or in healthy elderly subjects.
 PSYCHIATRY NEUROSCIENCES

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