The Japanese journal of neuropsychology

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ArticleTitle	Semantic memory deficits in Alzheimer's disease
Language	J
AuthorList	Michitaka Funayama
Affiliation	Department of Neuropsychiatry, Ashikaga Red Cross Hospital
Publication	Japanese Journal of Neuropsychology: 36 (4), 178-188, 2020
Received
Accepted
Abstract	Patients with Alzheimer's disease develop clinically evident semantic memory deficits in the middle stage, which differs from those with semantic dementia, who reveal those deficits even in the initial stage. Patients with Alzheimer's disease present with conceptual apraxia in the middle stage, and subsequently developed clinically evident semantic memory deficits with respect to objects, persons, and foods. Some may even show pica or mirror sign in the advanced stage. These semantic memory deficits are often accountable for psychiatric or behavioral symptoms found in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Poor performance on semantic memory tasks in patients with Alzheimer's disease in the initial stage reflects not only loss of semantic memory itself but other cognitive impairments, which is also different from the close relationship between poor performance and semantic memory loss in patients with semantic dementia. Contrary to the medial temporal lobe that is associated with episodic memory, the neural basis for semantic memory in Alzheimer's disease involves anterior temporal pole, inferior longitudinal fasciculus, and inferior and middle temporal gyri.
Keywords	Alzheimer's disease, semantic memory, conceptual apraxia, pica, temporal lobe