Atsushi Kanno

Donepezil significantly improves abilities in daily lives of female Down syndrome patients with severe cognitive impairment: a 24-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

Objective: Down syndrome (DS) patients share certain neuropathological features with Alzheimer disease patients. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study was performed to investigate the efficacy and safety of donepezil, an Alzheimer disease drug, for DS patients. Method: Twenty-one DS patients with severe cognitive impairment were assigned to take donepezil (3 mg daily) or a placebo for 24 weeks, and evaluated for activities in daily lives by concisely modified International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) scaling system. Results: ICF scores significantly increased without any adverse effects in the donepezil group in comparison to those in the placebo control. Among the individual functions tested, there was a dramatic improvement in the global mental functions and in specific mental functions. Conclusions: Donepezil may effectively and safely improve overall functioning of DS patients with severe cognitive impairment.

Asymmetrical mismatch negativity in humans as determined by phonetic but not physical difference.

A two-tone oddball procedure was employed to examine the effect of a phonemic category on the mismatch negativity (MMN). One of the stimuli was a phoneme prototype of Japanese /e/, and the other, [e/ö], which was perceived by Japanese participants as showing deviance from typicality but is nonetheless included in the category /e/. As control stimuli, a pair of pure tones (1940 and 1794 Hz), corresponding to the F2 frequencies of /e/ and [e/ö], respectively, was presented within the same oddball procedure. The MMN for deviant [e/ö] revealed greater amplitude than that of deviant /e/, although there was no significant difference in amplitude between the pure tones. The results suggest that a phonemic category determines the auditory sensory memory.

ERP Evaluation of Auditory Sensory Memory Systems in Adults with Intellectual Disability

Auditory sensory memory stage can be functionally divided into two subsystems; transient-detector system and permanent feature-detector system (). We assessed these systems in persons with intellectual disability by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) N1 and mismatch negativity (MMN), which reflect the two auditory subsystems, respectively. Added to these, P3a (an ERP reflecting stage after sensory memory) was evaluated. Either synthesized vowels or simple tones were delivered during a passive oddball paradigm to adults with and without intellectual disability. ERPs were recorded from midline scalp sites (Fz, Cz, and Pz). Relative to control group, participants with the disability exhibited greater N1 latency and less MMN amplitude. The results for N1 amplitude and MMN latency were basically comparable between both groups. IQ scores in participants with the disability revealed no significant relation with N1 and MMN measures, whereas the IQ scores tended to increase significantly as P3a latency reduced. These outcomes suggest that persons with intellectual disability might own discrete malfunctions for the two detector systems in auditory sensory-memory stage. Moreover, the processes following sensory memory might be partly related to a determinant of mental development.

Automatic auditory processing and event-related brain potentials in persons with mental retardation.

Measuring event-related brain potentials, this study examined automatic auditory processing in adults with and without mental retardation. Using an auditory oddball paradigm under an inattentive condition, we anticipated that an enhanced negative potential would be followed by a relatively small positive potential. The former was considered as the mismatch negativity and the latter as the P3a. Retarded adults (1 woman, 6 men, defined as a range of moderate to profound retardation) and 8 nonretarded (2 women, 6 men) adults participated. The mismatch negativity showed smaller amplitudes and greater latencies for retarded persons than those for nonretarded adults, whereas the P3a for the groups was comparable. The results may suggest malfunction of automatic auditory change-detection of the brain in mentally retarded persons.

Distinctive MMN relative to sound types in adults with intellectual disability

The effect of stimulus characteristics (vowel vs pure tone) upon mismatch negativity (MMN) was compared between adults with intellectual disability and healthy controls. Either vowels (synthesized vowels /e/ and /o/) or pure tones (1940 and 851 Hz corresponding to the F2 frequencies of /e/ and /o/, respectively) were presented using an oddball procedure. Both groups showed identical results in latency (vowel MMN>pure tone MMN) and less amplitudes for vowels. However, the disabled group demonstrated amplitude attenuation regardless of the stimulus type, although the vowel MMN amplitude showed a descending trend with age in both groups. These results suggest that auditory sensory memory in intellectual disability might have an insufficient capacity yet share a property common to controls.

Phonetically determined asymmetry of the mismatch negativity in Japanese

Abstract The effect of a phonetic category in Japanese on the mismatch negativity (MMN) was examined by using a two-tone “oddball” procedure. One of the stimuli was a phoneme prototype of Japanese [e] and the other, [e/o], which is perceived by Japanese speakers as showing deviance from typicality but is nonetheless included in the category [e]. In the first session, one of the two stimuli was presented as the standard and the other as the deviant. In the second session, the probability of both stimuli was reversed. As control stimuli, a pair of pure tones (1940 and 1794 Hz) corresponding to the F 2 frequencies of [e] and [e/o], respectively, were presented within the same oddball paradigm. The MMN for deviant [e/o] revealed greater amplitude and shorter latency than that of deviant [e]. In contrast, there was no significant difference in the amplitude or latency between the pure tones. The results suggest that a phonetic category determines the sensory memory processing in the auditory modality.