Publications by authors named "Mercedes Montenegro"

Cognitive reserve has been defined as the individuals' ability to tolerate age-related and neurodegenerative changes in the brain without developing clinical symptoms or signs of disease. Formal education, occupational attainment, and knowledge of other languages have been assessed as the most relevant factors determining cognitive reserve. The main objective of this study was to develop a structural equation model that reflects the direct influence of cognitive reserve on old adults' general cognitive status and executive functioning, and indirectly on sentence comprehension performance through executive functions mediation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The present study explores if cognitive reserve, executive functions, and working memory capacity are predictive of performance in the language domain (specifically in sentence comprehension and naming) after a cognitive training intervention. Sixty-six Spanish older adults voluntarily participated in the study, classified either as older adults with subjective cognitive decline according to Jessen et al.'s (2014) criteria ( = 35; 70.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The present study explores the role of cognitive reserve, executive functions, and working memory (WM) span, as factors that might explain training outcomes in cognitive status. Eighty-one older adults voluntarily participated in the study, classified either as older adults with subjective cognitive decline or cognitively intact. Each participant underwent a neuropsychological assessment that was conducted both at baseline (entailing cognitive reserve, executive functions, WM span and depressive symptomatology measures, as well as the Mini-Mental State Exam regarding initial cognitive status), and then 6 months later, once each participant had completed the training program (Mini-Mental State Exam at the endpoint).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Most research points to the ɛ4 allele of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene as the most recognizable genetic risk factor associated with Alzheimer's disease pathogenesis. It has been also suggested that the APOEɛ4 allele has a negative influence on cognitive functioning, which begins long before cognitive impairment becomes manifest. However, still, little is known about the APOEɛ4 interaction with cognitive intervention programs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Functional connectivity (FC) alterations represent a key feature in Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and provide a useful tool to characterize and predict the course of the disease. Those alterations have been also described in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), a prodromal stage of AD. There is a growing interest in detecting AD pathology in the brain in the very early stages of the disorder.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a stage between healthy aging and dementia. It is known that in this condition the connectivity patterns are altered in the resting state and during cognitive tasks, where an extra effort seems to be necessary to overcome cognitive decline. We aimed to determine the functional connectivity pattern required to deal with an internally directed cognitive state (IDICS) in healthy aging and MCI.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Neurological consultations due to memory complaints have increased in recent years in both older and younger people. Few investigations have studied the variables related to memory complaints in young adults.

Aim: To analyze, in a sample of young adults, the relationship between memory complaints and objective memory performance, depressive and anxiety symptoms, age, sex and level of studies.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The objectives of this paper were to evaluate the association of subjective memory complaints (SMC) with perceived state of health, mood and episodic memory (associative and everyday memory). We studied these areas using two different complaint assessment methods (three general questions and a validated scale). The study included 269 older adults (aged 65-87) with age-related memory changes, but without cognitive impairment.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: We investigate whether Subjective Memory Complaints (SMC) are associated with specific aspects of quality of life and activities of daily living.

Methods: Cross-sectional descriptive epidemiological study (random sample of the non-institutionalized census population): 1637 subjects over 64 years. SMC were obtained through questions regarding memory complaints.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

It is still an open question whether subjective memory complaints (SMC) can actually be considered to be clinically relevant predictors for the development of an objective memory impairment and even dementia. There is growing evidence that suggests that SMC are associated with an increased risk of dementia and with the presence of biological correlates of early Alzheimer's disease. In this paper, in order to shed some light on this issue, we try to discern whether subjects with SMC showed a different profile of functional connectivity compared with subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and healthy elderly subjects.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: It is still a matter of debate whether variables such as education, sex, age, personality and others underlie subjective memory complaints (SMC). Our objectives are to study: the prevalence of memory complaints in the city of Madrid, the distribution of complaints in the population according to socio-demographic variables and the related variables like cognitive performance, quality of life, perceived health status and functional ability. To our knowledge, this is the first study about the prevalence of SMC in Spain.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Subjective memory complaints (SMCs) are frequently reported by elderly people with or without objective cognitive impairment (OMI) as assessed by neuropsychological tests. We investigate whether SMCs are associated with altered brain biomagnetic patterns even in the absence of OMI.

Methods: We report spatio-temporal patterns of brain magnetic activity recorded with magnetoencephalography during a memory task in 51 elderly participants divided into the following groups: patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) with SMC and OMI, individuals with SMC but not OMI, and healthy controls without neither SMC nor OMI.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF