Content-specific vulnerability of recent episodic memories in Alzheimer's disease

NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA

卷:160

Article

Grande, Xenia^1,2  Berron, David^1,3  Maass, Anne¹  Bainbridge, Wilma A.⁵  Duezel, Emrah^1,2,4 

[1] German Ctr Neurodegenerat Dis, Magdeburg, Germany

[2] Otto von Guericke Univ, Inst Cognit Neurol & Dementia Res, Magdeburg, Germany

[3] Lund Univ, Dept Clin Sci Malmo, Clin Memory Res Unit, Lund, Sweden

[4] UCL, Inst Cognit Neurosci, London, England

[5] Univ Chicago, Dept Psychol, 5848 S Univ Ave, Chicago, IL 60637 USA

关键词: Episodic memory;    Memorability;    Memory representations;    Medial temporal lobe;    Alzheimer's disease;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107976

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Endel Tulving's episodic memory framework emphasizes the multifaceted re-experiencing of personal events. Indeed, decades of research focused on the experiential nature of episodic memories, usually treating recent episodic memory as a coherent experiential quality. However, recent insights into the functional architecture of the medial temporal lobe show that different types of mnemonic information are segregated into distinct neural pathways in brain circuits empirically associated with episodic memory. Moreover, recent memories do not fade as a whole under conditions of progressive neurodegeneration in these brain circuits, notably in Alzheimer's disease. Instead, certain memory content seem particularly vulnerable from the moment of their encoding while other content can remain memorable consistently across individuals and contexts. We propose that these observations are related to the content-specific functional architecture of the medial temporal lobe and consequently to a content-specific impairment of memory at different stages of the neurodegeneration. To develop Endel Tulving's inspirational legacy further and to advance our understanding of how memory function is affected by neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, we postulate that it is compelling to focus on the representational content of recent episodic memories.

【 授权许可】

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