Effects of amnestic mild cognitive impairment on N2 and P3 Go/NoGo ERP components.

Although many studies have demonstrated decline in attention and executive function (especially in inhibitory control) in healthy aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD), similar studies concerning mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are scarce. In the present study, we evaluated how the cognitive decline associated with amnestic MCI (aMCI) affects these processes, analyzing the N2 and P3 components of event-related potentials (ERPs) during the response (Go) and inhibition of response (NoGo) to different stimuli. ERPs were analyzed in 63 healthy and 30 aMCI adults (aged 50 to 87 years) during performance of a Go/NoGo auditory-visual attention-distraction task. aMCI adults showed poorer execution (longer response times and fewer correct responses) and smaller Go-N2 and NoGo-N2 amplitudes than control adults, whereas P3 amplitudes and N2 and P3 latencies did not differ between the groups. These results show that aMCI is associated with decline in executive function and stimuli evaluation in working memory.