Disappearance of memory fragments in patients with Alzheimer's disease: evidence from a longitudinal study of visual priming.

Previous studies suggested that perceptual memory as indexed by visual priming is normal in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, these studies did not specifically test the long-term effects of visual priming, which may differ significantly between Alzheimer's patients and normal subjects. To test this possibility, we examined long-term visual priming in AD patients, 1 hour, 1 month, and 3 months after training. Our results indicated a significant difference in visual priming between AD patients and normal subjects after 3 months, but not 1 month. For AD patients, there was a strong positive correlation between the 3-month priming effect and the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores-severely demented patients were less likely to exhibit priming after 3 months. It appears that severe cortical degeneration may render AD patients unable to consolidate their perceptual memories. Our results suggest that lack of visual priming in AD patients is linked to the inability to maintain fragmented perceptual memories.