Emotional Working Memory in Alzheimer's Disease Patients

BACKGROUND Few studies have assessed whether emotional content affects processes supporting working memory in Alzheimer disease (AD) patients. METHODS We assessed 22 AD patients and 40 elderly controls (EC) with a delayed matching and non-matching to sample task (DMST/DNMST), and a spatial-delayed recognition span task (SRST; unique/varied) using emotional stimuli. RESULTS AD patients showed decreased performance on both tasks compared with EC. With regard to the valence of the stimuli, we did not observe significant performance differences between groups in the DMST/DNMST. However, both groups remembered a larger number of negative than positive or neutral pictures on unique SRST. CONCLUSION The results suggest that AD patients show a relative preservation of working memory for emotional information, particularly for negative stimuli.