Impairments of emotional processing have been reported in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), consistently with the existence of early amygdala atrophy in the pathology. In this study, we hypothesized that patients with AD might show a deficit of orientation toward emotional information under conditions of visual search. Eighteen patients with AD, 24 age-matched controls, and 35 young controls were eye-tracked while they performed a visual search task on a computer screen. The target was a vehicle with implicit (negative or neutral) emotional content, presented concurrently with one, three, or five non-vehicle neutral distractors. The task was to find the target and to report whether a break in the target frame was on the left or on the right side. Both control groups detected negative targets more efficiently than they detected neutral targets, showing facilitated engagement toward negative information. In contrast, patients with AD showed no influence of emotional information on engagement delays. However, all groups reported the frame break location more slowly for negative than for neutral targets (after accounting for the last fixation delay), showing a more difficult disengagement from negative information. These findings are the first to highlight a selective lack of emotional influence on engagement processes in patients with AD. The involvement of amygdala alterations in this behavioral impairment remains to be investigated.

据报道，阿尔茨海默氏病（AD）的情绪加工受损，与病理中早期杏仁核萎缩的存在一致。在这项研究中，我们假设AD患者在视觉搜索条件下可能对情绪信息缺乏定向。在计算机屏幕上执行视觉搜索任务时，对18位AD患者，24位年龄匹配的对照组和35位年轻对照组进行了眼动追踪。目标是具有隐性（负面或中性）情绪内容的车辆，同时与一，三个或五个非车辆中性干扰物同时显示。任务是找到目标并报告目标框架的中断是在左侧还是右侧。两个对照组的检测负目标均比检测中性目标的效率高，显示出对负面信息的参与度更高。相比之下，AD患者对订婚延迟没有情感信息的影响。但是，所有组都报告了负值的帧中断位置比中性目标慢（考虑了最后的固定延迟），这表明从负值信息中解脱更加困难。这些发现是第一个强调对AD患者参与过程选择性缺乏情感影响的发现。杏仁核改变与这种行为障碍的关系尚待研究。所有组均报告负数的帧中断位置比中性目标慢（考虑了最后的固定延迟），这表明与负信息的脱离更加困难。这些发现是第一个强调对AD患者参与过程选择性缺乏情感影响的发现。杏仁核改变与这种行为障碍的关系尚待研究。所有组均报告负数的帧中断位置比中性目标慢（考虑了最后的固定延迟），这表明与负信息的脱离更加困难。这些发现是第一个强调对AD患者参与过程选择性缺乏情感影响的发现。杏仁核改变与这种行为障碍的关系尚待研究。