Deficits in visuo-spatial but not in topographical memory during pregnancy and the postpartum state in an expert military pilot: a case report

BMC Research Notes

Enrico Tomao³  Felice Strollo¹  Cecilia Guariglia⁴  Fabio Morgagni²  Filippo Bianchini⁴  Paola Verde²  Laura Piccardi⁵ 

[1]UOC Endocrinologia e Malattie Metaboliche, INRCA- IRCCS Roma, Rome, Italy

[2]Centro Sperimentale Volo – Reparto Medicina Aeronautica e Spaziale, Aeroporto “M. de Bernardi” Pratica di Mare Pomezia, Rome, Italy

[3]Corpo Sanitario Aeronautico, Rome, Italy

[4]Dipartmento di Psicologia, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy

[5]Neuropsychology Unit, IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy

关键词: Sex differences;    Human navigation;    Postpartum;    Pregnancy;    Spatial cognition;   

Others  :  1130499
DOI  :  10.1186/1756-0500-7-524

 received in 2014-05-02, accepted in 2014-08-08,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

It is well known that cognitive and emotional changes occur during pregnancy, but little is known about their magnitude or their time of occurrence and recovery. During pregnancy memory is one of the most impaired cognitive functions. Although long-term aspects of memory have been investigated, other aspects of memory have not yet been explored (i.e., navigational memory and reaching memory).

Case presentation

Here we describe the changes in reaching and walking memory that occurred during pregnancy and one year after delivery in an Italian female military pilot (Case 1) with high spatial ability. In memory tests she showed a classical dissociation between performance in reaching and walking distance, which indicated a failure of working memory, learning, and storage in reaching space. This suggests that her expertise served as a protective factor mitigating her low walking memory performance, and saving the topographical component.

We compared her performance with that of two non-pregnant control groups (i.e., women pilots and non-pilots) and found that Case 1’s reaching memory performance was significantly worse than that of the control groups. Even one year postpartum, Case 1’s performance was not yet the same as that of the other pilots.

Conclusions

These findings contribute to our knowledge of the specific, as yet unexplored, aspects of memory deficits in women pilots during pregnancy and postpartum and suggest the need for better neuropsychological assessment before these women return to work in operational environments.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Piccardi et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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