Event Abstract

Back to Event

Neural bases of impaired decision making process in Alzheimer’s disease

Sampada Sinha1, 2*, Sarvada C. Tiwari1*, Samridhi Shah3*, Priti Singh1*, Shailendra M. Tripathi1, Nishamani Pandey1* and Rajendra D. Badgaiyan2*
  • 1 King George Medical University, KGMU, Department of Geriatric Mental Health (DGMH), India
  • 2 University of Minnesota, Department of Psychiatry, United States
  • 3 New York Institute of Technology, United States

Impairment of decision making process is an important deficit leading to poor quality of life in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). These patients have been shown to make poor choices in a variety of task conditions including the Iowa gambling task. In this task their performance correlates with the extent of damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Since this area is responsible for assigning affective values to emotion, the emotional component of decision making process probably drives the impaired performance. Impaired explicit memory could also be an important contributor. Inability to recall the outcome of previous trial adversely impacts the learning and decision making processes. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex through its connections with the medial temporal lobe (MTL) and amygdala mediates emotionally driven explicit recall. Because of degenerated MTL and vmPFC, affective values are not assigned to decision choices leading to altered decision making process. In addition, damage to the top down control exerted by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex over MTL leads to loss of conscious introspection of choices. Further, altered connection between amygdala and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex prevents emotional appraisal of different choices hence, misguided decision making process in AD. Elucidation of the processes underlying decision making process could lead to more objective diagnostic tests and better understanding of underlying causes of impaired decision making process. It will help investigators develop novel rehabilitation strategies aimed at improving quality of life in AD patients.

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease, Decision Making, neural correlates of decision making, Somatic states, medial temporal lobe structures

Conference: SAN2016 Meeting, Corfu, Greece, 6 Oct - 9 Oct, 2016.

Presentation Type: Poster Presentation in SAN2016 Conference

Topic: Posters

Citation: Sinha S, Tiwari SC, Shah S, Singh P, Tripathi SM, Pandey N and Badgaiyan RD (2016). Neural bases of impaired decision making process in Alzheimer’s disease. Conference Abstract: SAN2016 Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2016.220.00065

Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.

The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.

Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.

For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.

Received: 01 Aug 2016; Published Online: 01 Aug 2016.

* Correspondence:
Dr. Sampada Sinha, King George Medical University, KGMU, Department of Geriatric Mental Health (DGMH), Lucknow, Uttarpradesh, 226003, India, drsampadasinha@gmail.com
Dr. Sarvada C Tiwari, King George Medical University, KGMU, Department of Geriatric Mental Health (DGMH), Lucknow, Uttarpradesh, 226003, India, sarvada1953@gmail.com
Dr. Samridhi Shah, New York Institute of Technology, New York, NEW YORK, 11568, United States, dr.samridhisinha@gmail.com
Dr. Priti Singh, King George Medical University, KGMU, Department of Geriatric Mental Health (DGMH), Lucknow, Uttarpradesh, 226003, India, pritimercan@yahoo.com
Dr. Nishamani Pandey, King George Medical University, KGMU, Department of Geriatric Mental Health (DGMH), Lucknow, Uttarpradesh, 226003, India, dgmhresearch@gmail.com
Dr. Rajendra D Badgaiyan, University of Minnesota, Department of Psychiatry, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55455, United States, rdb@umn.edu