scholarly journals Patterns of Autobiographical Memory Loss in Medial-Temporal Lobe Amnesic Patients

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 1490-1506 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Shayna Rosenbaum ◽  
Morris Moscovitch ◽  
Jonathan K. Foster ◽  
David M. Schnyer ◽  
Fuqiang Gao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Autobiographical Memory ◽  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Memory Loss ◽  
Hippocampal Damage ◽  
Severe Loss ◽  
Precise Quantification

The issue of whether the hippocampus and related structures in the medial-temporal lobe (MTL) play a temporary or permanent role in autobiographical episodic memory remains unresolved. One long-standing belief is that autobiographical memory (AM), like semantic memory, is initially dependent on the MTL but ultimately can be retained and recovered independently of it. However, evidence that hippocampal amnesia results in severe loss of episodic memory for a lifetime of personally experienced events suggests otherwise. To test the opposing views, we conducted detailed investigations of autobiographical episodic memory in people with amnesia resulting from MTL lesions of varying extent. By combining precise quantification of MTL and neocortical volumes with sensitive measures of recollection of one's personal past, we show that the severity of episodic, but not semantic, AM loss is best accounted for by the degree of hippocampal damage and less likely related to additional neocortical compromise.

scholarly journals Autobiographical Memory and Patterns of Brain Atrophy in Fronto-temporal Lobar Degeneration

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (10) ◽  
pp. 1839-1853 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret C. McKinnon ◽  
Elena I. Nica ◽  
Pheth Sengdy ◽  
Natasa Kovacevic ◽  
Morris Moscovitch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autobiographical Memory ◽  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Memory Loss ◽  
Behavioral Pattern ◽  
Remote Memory ◽  
Semantic Retrieval ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Matched Comparison

Autobiographical memory paradigms have been increasingly used to study the behavioral and neuroanatomical correlates of human remote memory. Although there are numerous functional neuroimaging studies on this topic, relatively few studies of patient samples exist, with heterogeneity of results owing to methodological variability. In this study, fronto-temporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), a form of dementia affecting regions crucial to autobiographical memory, was used as a model of autobiographical memory loss. We emphasized the separation of episodic (recollection of specific event, perceptual, and mental state information) from semantic (factual information unspecific in time and place) autobiographical memory, derived from a reliable method for scoring transcribed autobiographical protocols, the Autobiographical Interview [Levine, B., Svoboda, E., Hay, J., Winocur, G., & Moscovitch, M. Aging and autobiographical memory: Dissociating episodic from semantic retrieval. Psychology and Aging, 17, 677–689, 2002]. Patients with the fronto-temporal dementia (FTD) and mixed fronto-temporal and semantic dementia (FTD/SD) variants of FTLD were impaired at reconstructing episodically rich autobiographical memories across the lifespan, with FTD/SD patients generating an excess of generic semantic autobiographical information. Patients with progressive nonfluent aphasia were mildly impaired for episodic autobiographical memory, but this impairment was eliminated with the provision of structured cueing, likely reflecting relatively intact medial-temporal lobe function, whereas the same cueing failed to bolster the FTD and FTD/SD patients' performance relative to that of matched comparison subjects. The pattern of episodic, but not semantic, autobiographical impairment was enhanced with disease progression on 1- to 2-year follow-up testing in a subset of patients, supplementing the cross-sectional evidence for specificity of episodic autobiographical impairment with longitudinal data. This behavioral pattern covaried with volume loss in a distributed left-lateralized posterior network centered on the temporal lobe, consistent with evidence from other patient and functional neuroimaging studies of autobiographical memory. Frontal lobe volumes, however, did not significantly contribute to this network, suggesting that frontal contributions to autobiographical episodic memory may be more complex than previously appreciated.

scholarly journals Autobiographical memory unknown: Pervasive autobiographical memory loss encompassing personality trait knowledge in an individual with medial temporal lobe amnesia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aubrey Anne Ladd Wank ◽  
Anna Robertson ◽  
Sean C. Thayer ◽  
Mieke Verfaellie ◽  
Steven Z. Rapcsak ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Autobiographical Memory ◽  
Medial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Memory Loss ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobes ◽  
Temporal Lobes

Autobiographical memory consists of distinct memory types varying from highly abstract to episodic. Self trait knowledge, which is considered one of the more abstract types of autobiographical memory, is thought to rely on regions of the autobiographical memory neural network implicated in schema representation, including the medial prefrontal cortex, and critically, not the medial temporal lobes. The current case study introduces an individual who, as a consequence of bilateral posterior cerebral artery strokes, experienced extensive medial temporal lobe damage with sparing of the medial prefrontal cortex. Interestingly, in addition to severe retrograde and anterograde episodic and autobiographical fact amnesia, this individual’s self trait knowledge was impaired for his current and pre-morbid personality traits. Yet, further assessment revealed that this individual had preserved conceptual knowledge for personality traits, could reliably and accurately rate another person’s traits, and could access his own self-concept in a variety of ways. In addition to autobiographical memory loss, he demonstrated impairment on non-personal semantic memory tests, most notably on tests requiring retrieval of unique knowledge. This rare case of amnesia suggests a previously unreported role for the medial temporal lobes in personal trait knowledge, which we propose reflects the critical role of this neural region in the storage and retrieval of personal semantics that are experience-near, meaning autobiographical facts grounded in spatiotemporal contexts.

scholarly journals Classic and recent advances in understanding amnesia

F1000Research ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Allen
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Memory Function ◽  
Hippocampal Function ◽  
Delayed Recall ◽  
Recent Advances ◽  
Delayed Recognition

Neurological amnesia has been and remains the focus of intense study, motivated by the drive to understand typical and atypical memory function and the underlying brain basis that is involved. There is now a consensus that amnesia associated with hippocampal (and, in many cases, broader medial temporal lobe) damage results in deficits in episodic memory, delayed recall, and recollective experience. However, debate continues regarding the patterns of preservation and impairment across a range of abilities, including semantic memory and learning, delayed recognition, working memory, and imagination. This brief review highlights some of the influential and recent advances in these debates and what they may tell us about the amnesic condition and hippocampal function.

scholarly journals Learning and remembering real-world events after medial temporal lobe damage

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (47) ◽  
pp. 13480-13485 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam J. O. Dede ◽  
Jennifer C. Frascino ◽  
John T. Wixted ◽  
Larry R. Squire
Keyword(s):  
Autobiographical Memory ◽  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Real World ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
University Of California ◽  
Hippocampal Damage ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
Control Groups ◽  
The University

The hippocampus is important for autobiographical memory, but its role is unclear. In the study, patients with hippocampal damage and controls were taken on a 25-min walk on the University of California, San Diego, campus during which 11 planned events occurred. Memory was tested directly after the walk. In addition, a second group of controls took the same walk and were tested after 1 mo. Patients with hippocampal damage remembered fewer details than controls tested directly after the walk but remembered a similar number of details as controls tested after 1 mo. Notably, the details that were reported by patients had the characteristics of episodic recollection and included references to particular places and events. Patients exhibited no special difficulty remembering spatial details in comparison with nonspatial details. Last, whereas both control groups tended to recall the events of the walk in chronological order, the order in which patients recalled the events was unrelated to the order in which they occurred. The findings illuminate the role of the hippocampus in autobiographical memory and in the spatial and nonspatial aspects of episodic recollection.

Autobiographical Memory in Children with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. 1076-1086 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael B. Gascoigne ◽  
Mary Lou Smith ◽  
Richard Webster ◽  
Belinda Barton ◽  
Deepak Gill ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Temporal Lobe Epilepsy ◽  
Autobiographical Memory ◽  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Memory Deficits ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Healthy Control

AbstractAutobiographical memory involves the recall of personal facts (semantic memory) and re-experiencing of specific personal events (episodic memory). Although impairments in autobiographical memory have been found in adults with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and attributed to compromised hippocampal integrity, it is not yet known whether this occurs in children with TLE. In the current study, 21 children with TLE and 24 healthy controls of comparable age, sex, and socioeconomic status were administered the Children's Autobiographical Interview. Compared to controls, children with TLE recalled fewer episodic details, but only when no retrieval prompts were provided. There was no difference between the groups for semantic autobiographic details. Interestingly, the number of episodic details recalled increased significantly from 6 to 16 years of age in healthy control children, but not in children with TLE. Exploratory analyses revealed that, within the group of children with TLE, epilepsy factors, including presence or absence of structural hippocampal abnormalities, did not relate to the richness of episodic recall. Our results provide first evidence of autobiographical episodic memory deficits in children with TLE. (JINS, 2013, 19, 1–12)

Children show adult-like hippocampal pattern separation for familiar but not novel events

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan L. Benear ◽  
Elizabeth A. Horwath ◽  
Emily Cowan ◽  
M. Catalina Camacho ◽  
Chi Ngo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Developmental Change ◽  
Pattern Separation ◽  
Developmental Changes ◽  
Similarity Analysis ◽  
Separation Processes ◽  
Parahippocampal Cortex ◽  
Pattern Similarity

The medial temporal lobe (MTL) undergoes critical developmental change throughout childhood, which aligns with developmental changes in episodic memory. We used representational similarity analysis to compare neural pattern similarity for children and adults in hippocampus and parahippocampal cortex during naturalistic viewing of clips from the same movie or different movies. Some movies were more familiar to participants than others. Neural pattern similarity was generally lower for clips from the same movie, indicating that related content taxes pattern separation-like processes. However, children showed this effect only for movies with which they were familiar, whereas adults showed the effect consistently. These data suggest that children need more exposures to stimuli in order to show mature pattern separation processes.

Modulation of medial temporal lobe activity in epilepsy patients with hippocampal sclerosis during verbal working memory

2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 536-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
PABLO CAMPO ◽  
FERNANDO MAESTÚ ◽  
IRENE GARCÍA-MORALES ◽  
ANTONIO GIL-NAGEL ◽  
BRYAN STRANGE ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Hippocampal Sclerosis ◽  
Stimulus Presentation ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Compelling Evidence ◽  
Electrophysiological Studies

AbstractIt has been traditionally assumed that medial temporal lobe (MTL) is not required for working memory (WM). However, animal lesion and electrophysiological studies and human neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies have provided increasing evidences of a critical involvement of MTL in WM. Based on previous findings, the central aim of this study was to investigate the contribution of the MTL to verbal WM encoding. Here, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to compare the patterns of MTL activation of 9 epilepsy patients suffering from left hippocampal sclerosis with those of 10 healthy matched controls while they performed a verbal WM task. MEG recordings allow detailed tracking of the time course of MTL activation. We observed impaired WM performance associated with changes in the dynamics of MTL activity in epilepsy patients. Specifically, whereas patients showed decreased activity in damaged MTL, activity in the contralateral MTL was enhanced, an effect that became significant in the 600- to 700-ms interval after stimulus presentation. These findings strongly support the crucial contribution of MTL to verbal WM encoding and provide compelling evidence for the proposal that MTL contributes to both episodic memory and WM. Whether this pattern is signaling reorganization or a normal use of a damaged structure is discussed. (JINS, 2009, 15, 536–546.)

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