Remote memory deficits in transient epileptic amnesia

Transient epileptic amnesia is a form of temporal lobe epilepsy in which sufferers often complain of irretrievable loss of remote memories. We used a broad range of memory tests to clarify the extent and nature of the remote memory deficits in patients with transient epileptic amnesia. Performance o...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Brain (London, England : 1878) England : 1878), 2010-05, Vol.133 (5), p.1368-1379
Main Authors: Milton, Fraser, Muhlert, Nils, Pindus, Dominika M., Butler, Christopher R., Kapur, Narinder, Graham, Kim S., Zeman, Adam Z. J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aged
Amnesia, Retrograde - etiology
Amnesia, Retrograde - psychology
autobiographical memory
Autobiography as Topic
Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe - psychology
Female
focal retrograde amnesia
Humans
Language
Male
Memory
Middle Aged
Neuropsychological Tests
remote memory
Time Factors
transient epileptic amnesia
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Transient epileptic amnesia is a form of temporal lobe epilepsy in which sufferers often complain of irretrievable loss of remote memories. We used a broad range of memory tests to clarify the extent and nature of the remote memory deficits in patients with transient epileptic amnesia. Performance on standard tests of anterograde memory was normal. In contrast, there was a severe impairment of memory for autobiographical events extending across the entire lifespan, providing evidence for the occurrence of ‘focal retrograde amnesia’ in transient epileptic amnesia. There was a milder impairment of personal semantic memory, most pronounced for midlife years. There were limited deficits of public semantic memory for recent decades. These results may reflect subtle structural pathology in the medial temporal lobes or the effects of the propagation of epileptiform activity through the network of brain regions responsible for long-term memory, or a combination of these two mechanisms.
ISSN:0006-8950
1460-2156
DOI:10.1093/brain/awq055