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Francis Eustache - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Development of Autonoetic autobiographical memory in school-age children: genuine age effect or development of basic cognitive abilities?
Consciousness and Cognition, 2009Co-Authors: Laurence Picard, Isméry Reffuveille, Francis Eustache, Pascale PiolinoAbstract:This study investigated the mechanisms behind episodic autobiographical memory (EAM) development in school-age children. Thirty children (6-11years) performed a novel EAM test. We computed one index of episodicity via Autonoetic Consciousness and two indices of retrieval spontaneity (overall and EAM-specific) for a recent period (previous school year) and a more remote one (preschool years). Executive functions, and episodic and personal semantic memory were assessed. Results showed that recent autobiographical memories (AMs) were mainly episodic, unlike remote ones. An age-related increase in the indices of episodicity and specific spontaneity for recent AMs was mainly mediated by an age-related increase in the efficiency of the three cognitive abilities. Remote AMs varied only slightly with age (overall spontaneity), reflecting improvements in semantic abilities. Thus, EAM development in school-age children is essentially bound up with the increasing efficiency of cognitive abilities. Results are discussed in the light of models of childhood amnesia.
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Episodic autobiographical memories over the course of time: Cognitive, neuropsychological and neuroimaging findings
Neuropsychologia, 2009Co-Authors: Pascale Piolino, Béatrice Desgranges, Francis EustacheAbstract:The critical attributes of episodic memory are self, Autonoetic Consciousness and subjectively sensed time. The aim of this paper is to present a theoretical overview of our already published researches into the nature of episodic memory over the course of time. We have developed a new method of assessing autobiographical memory (TEMPau task), which is specially designed to measure these specific aspects, based on the sense of re-experiencing events from across the entire lifespan. Based on our findings of cognitive, neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies, new insights into episodic autobiographical memories are presented, focusing on the effects of age of the subjects interacting with time interval in healthy subjects and lesioned patients. The multifaceted and complex nature of episodic memory is emphasized and it is suggested that mental time travel through subjective time, which allows individuals to re-experience specific past events through a feeling of self-awareness, is the last feature of autobiographical memory to become fully operational in development and the first feature to go in aging and most amnesias. Our findings highlight the critical role of frontotemporal areas in constructive autobiographical memory processes, and especially hippocampus, in re-experiencing episodic details from the recent or more distant past.
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Autonoetic Consciousness in Alzheimer's disease: neuropsychological and PET findings using an episodic learning and recognition task.
Neurobiol Aging, 2007Co-Authors: Géraldine Rauchs, Francis Eustache, Pascale Piolino, Florence Mézenge, Brigitte Landeau, Catherine Lalevée, Alice Pélerin, Fausto Viader, Vincent De La Sayette, Béatrice DesgrangesAbstract:OBJECTIVE: This study aims to map in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) the correlations between resting-state brain glucose utilization measured by FDG-PET and scores reflecting Autonoetic Consciousness in an episodic learning and recognition task. METHODS: Autonoetic Consciousness, that gives a subject the conscious feeling to mentally travelling back in time to relive an event, was assessed using the Remember/Know (R/K) paradigm. RESULTS: AD patients provided less R responses (reflecting Autonoetic Consciousness) and more K ones (indicating the involvement of noetic Consciousness) than healthy controls. Correct recognitions associated with a R response correlated with the metabolism of frontal areas bilaterally whereas those associated with a K response mainly correlated with the metabolism of left parahippocampal gyrus and lateral temporal cortex. CONCLUSIONS: These data show that recollection is impaired in AD and recognition is more based on a feeling of familiarity than in controls. In addition, the findings of our correlative approach indicate that the impairment of episodic memory is mainly subserved by the dysfunction of frontal areas and of the hippocampal region.
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genuine episodic memory deficits and executive dysfunctions in alcoholic subjects early in abstinence
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 2007Co-Authors: Annelise Pitel, Béatrice Desgranges, Helene Beaunieux, Thomas A Witkowski, Francois Vabret, Berengere Guillerygirard, Peggy Quinette, Francis EustacheAbstract:Background: Chronic alcoholism is known to impair episodic memory function, but the specific nature of this impairment is still unclear. Moreover, it has never been established whether episodic memory deficit in alcoholism is an intrinsic memory deficit or whether it has an executive origin. Thus, the objectives are to specify which episodic memory processes are impaired early in abstinence from alcohol and to determine whether they should be regarded as genuine memory deficits or rather as the indirect consequences of executive impairments. Methods: Forty recently detoxified alcoholic inpatients at alcohol entry treatment and 55 group-matched controls underwent a neuropsychological assessment of episodic memory and executive functions. The episodic memory evaluation consisted of 3 tasks complementing each other designed to measure the different episodic memory components (learning, storage, encoding and retrieval, contextual memory, and Autonoetic Consciousness) and 5 executive tasks testing capacities of organization, inhibition, flexibility, updating, and integration. Results: Compared with control subjects, alcoholic patients presented impaired learning abilities, encoding processes, retrieval processes, contextual memory and Autonoetic Consciousness. However, there was no difference between the 2 groups regarding the storage capacities assessed by the rate of forgetting. Concerning executive functions, alcoholic subjects displayed deficits in each executive task used. Nevertheless, stepwise regression analyses showed that only performances on fluency tasks were significantly predictive of some of the episodic memory disorders (learning abilities for 40%, encoding processes for 20%, temporal memory for 21%, and state of Consciousness associated with memories for 26%) in the alcoholic group. Discussion: At alcohol treatment entry, alcoholic patients present genuine episodic memory deficits that cannot be regarded solely as the consequences of executive dysfunctions. These results are in accordance with neuroimaging findings showing hippocampal atrophy. Moreover, given the involvement of episodic memory and executive functions in alcohol treatment, these data could have clinical implications.
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autobiographical memory the sense of recollection and executive functions after severe traumatic brain injury
Cortex, 2007Co-Authors: Pascale Piolino, Béatrice Desgranges, Liliane Manning, Pierre North, Corinne Jokic, Francis EustacheAbstract:Residual disorders of autobiographical memory long after trauma resulting from head injury are rarely assessed, even though they may affect social adjustment and the resumption of daily life. We conducted a thorough study of autobiographical memory in severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients, examined at least one year post-trauma. Twenty-five patients were submitted to a novel and controlled autobiographical procedure specially designed to measure episodic memories (i.e., unique, specific in time and space, and detailed) from their entire life span with two kinds of self-remembering experience. The ability to mentally travel back through time and re-experience the source of acquisition, i.e. Autonoetic Consciousness, was assessed via the "Remember/Know" paradigm and a checking procedure of sense of remembering. Self-perspective in visual imagery, which is also critically involved in episodic recollection, was assessed by the "Field/Observer perspective" paradigm. In addition, the patients underwent a battery of standardized neuropsychological tests to assess episodic and semantic memory, orientation and executive functions. The results showed that the patients, compared with healthy controls, were significantly impaired in recalling episodic autobiographical memories. This impairment was not related to the life period tested or the patients' ages nor the intellectual impairment. Deficits involved disturbances in sense of remembering, visual imagery self-perspective and recollection of spatiotemporal details. Stepwise-regression analyses carried out in the TBI patients revealed a significant relationship between an abnormal sense of remembering and executive dysfunction covering both anterograde and retrograde components. The novel assessment used in this study provides the first detailed evidence of a more fine-grained deficit of autobiographical memory in TBI patients. Indeed, the results suggest that these patients, long after trauma, present Autonoetic Consciousness and self-perspective disorders, which include sense of identity (the self) as a continuous entity across time, probably related to frontal dysfunction.
Pascale Piolino - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Development of Autonoetic autobiographical memory in school-age children: genuine age effect or development of basic cognitive abilities?
Consciousness and Cognition, 2009Co-Authors: Laurence Picard, Isméry Reffuveille, Francis Eustache, Pascale PiolinoAbstract:This study investigated the mechanisms behind episodic autobiographical memory (EAM) development in school-age children. Thirty children (6-11years) performed a novel EAM test. We computed one index of episodicity via Autonoetic Consciousness and two indices of retrieval spontaneity (overall and EAM-specific) for a recent period (previous school year) and a more remote one (preschool years). Executive functions, and episodic and personal semantic memory were assessed. Results showed that recent autobiographical memories (AMs) were mainly episodic, unlike remote ones. An age-related increase in the indices of episodicity and specific spontaneity for recent AMs was mainly mediated by an age-related increase in the efficiency of the three cognitive abilities. Remote AMs varied only slightly with age (overall spontaneity), reflecting improvements in semantic abilities. Thus, EAM development in school-age children is essentially bound up with the increasing efficiency of cognitive abilities. Results are discussed in the light of models of childhood amnesia.
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cognitive avoidance of intrusive memories and autobiographical memory specificity Autonoetic Consciousness and self perspective
Memory, 2009Co-Authors: Cédric Lemogne, Pascale Piolino, Roland Jouvent, Jean-françois Allilaire, Loretxu Bergouignan, Philippe FossatiAbstract:Autobiographical memory (AM) specificity is impaired in depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Previous studies emphasised the role of cognitive avoidance of intrusive memories in this impairment. This study aimed to examine the association of cognitive avoidance of intrusive memories with specificity, Autonoetic Consciousness, and self-perspective. A total of 38 healthy participants were given the revised Impact of Event Scale (IES-R) and an AM task designed to assess positive and negative memories regarding specificity, Autonoetic Consciousness (remember/know procedure), and self-perspective (field/observer procedure). Taking into account age, verbal IQ, mood, harm avoidance, and executive resources, the IES-R avoidance subscale was negatively correlated with specificity and remember responses for positive memories, and with remember and field responses for negative memories. These findings suggest that cognitive avoidance of intrusive memories is associated with a decrease of the episodic components of AM retrieval.
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Episodic autobiographical memories over the course of time: Cognitive, neuropsychological and neuroimaging findings
Neuropsychologia, 2009Co-Authors: Pascale Piolino, Béatrice Desgranges, Francis EustacheAbstract:The critical attributes of episodic memory are self, Autonoetic Consciousness and subjectively sensed time. The aim of this paper is to present a theoretical overview of our already published researches into the nature of episodic memory over the course of time. We have developed a new method of assessing autobiographical memory (TEMPau task), which is specially designed to measure these specific aspects, based on the sense of re-experiencing events from across the entire lifespan. Based on our findings of cognitive, neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies, new insights into episodic autobiographical memories are presented, focusing on the effects of age of the subjects interacting with time interval in healthy subjects and lesioned patients. The multifaceted and complex nature of episodic memory is emphasized and it is suggested that mental time travel through subjective time, which allows individuals to re-experience specific past events through a feeling of self-awareness, is the last feature of autobiographical memory to become fully operational in development and the first feature to go in aging and most amnesias. Our findings highlight the critical role of frontotemporal areas in constructive autobiographical memory processes, and especially hippocampus, in re-experiencing episodic details from the recent or more distant past.
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Cognitive avoidance of intrusive memories and autobiographical memory: Specificity, Autonoetic Consciousness, and self-perspective
Memory (Hove England), 2008Co-Authors: Cédric Lemogne, Pascale Piolino, Roland Jouvent, Jean-françois Allilaire, Loretxu Bergouignan, Philippe FossatiAbstract:Autobiographical memory (AM) specificity is impaired in depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Previous studies emphasised the role of cognitive avoidance of intrusive memories in this impairment. This study aimed to examine the association of cognitive avoidance of intrusive memories with specificity, Autonoetic Consciousness, and self-perspective. A total of 38 healthy participants were given the revised Impact of Event Scale (IES-R) and an AM task designed to assess positive and negative memories regarding specificity, Autonoetic Consciousness (remember/know procedure), and self-perspective (field/observer procedure). Taking into account age, verbal IQ, mood, harm avoidance, and executive resources, the IES-R avoidance subscale was negatively correlated with specificity and remember responses for positive memories, and with remember and field responses for negative memories. These findings suggest that cognitive avoidance of intrusive memories is associated with a decrease of the episodic compo...
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Autonoetic Consciousness in autobiographical memories after medial temporal lobe resection.
Behavioural neurology, 2008Co-Authors: Marion Noulhiane, Pascale Piolino, Dominique Hasboun, Stéphane Clemenceau, Michel Baulac, Séverine SamsonAbstract:This study aims to investigate Autonoetic Consciousness associated with episodic autobiographical memory in patients who had undergone unilateral medial temporal lobe resection for intractable epilepsy. Autonoetic Consciousness, defined as the conscious feeling of mentally travelling back in time to relive a specific event, was assessed using the Remember/Know (R/K) paradigm across different time periods as proposed in the autobiographical memory task developed by Piolino et al. (TEMPau task). Results revealed that the two patient groups (left and right temporal resection) gave reduced sense of reliving (R) responses and more familiarity (K) responses than healthy controls. This poor Autonoetic Consciousness was highlighted when patients were asked to justify their Remember responses by recalling sensory-perceptive, affective or spatiotemporal specific details across all life periods. These results support the bilateral MTL contribution to episodic autobiographical memory covering the entire lifespan, which is consistent with the multiple trace theory of MTL function (7,9). This study also demonstrates the bilateral involvement of MTL structures in recalling specific details of personal events characterized by Autonoetic Consciousness.
Hans J. Markowitsch - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Stress- and trauma-related blockade of episodic-autobiographical memory processing
Neuropsychologia, 2020Co-Authors: Angelica Staniloiu, Andreas Kordon, Hans J. MarkowitschAbstract:Memory disorders without a direct neural substrate still belong to the riddles in neuroscience. Although they were for a while dissociated from research and clinical arenas, risking becoming forgotten diseases, they sparked novel interests, paralleling the refinements in functional neuroimaging and neuropsychology. Although Endel Tulving has not fully embarked himself on exploring this field, he had published at least one article on functional amnesia (Schacter et al., 1982) and ignited a seminal article on amnesia with mixed etiology (Craver et al., 2014). Most importantly, the research of Endel Tulving has provided the researchers and clinicians in the field of dissociative or functional amnesia with the best framework for superiorly understanding these disorders through the lens of his evolving concept of episodic memory and five long term memory systems classification, which he developed and advanced. Herein we use the classification of long-term memory systems of Endel Tulving as well as his concepts and views on Autonoetic Consciousness, relationships between memory systems and relationship between episodic memory and emotion to describe six cases of dissociative amnesia that put a challenge for researchers and clinicians due to their atypicality. We then discuss their possible triggering and maintaining mechanisms, pointing to their clinical heterogeneity and multifaceted causally explanatory frameworks.
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Memory, Time and Autonoetic Consciousness
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2014Co-Authors: Hans J. Markowitsch, Angelica StaniloiuAbstract:Abstract Memory and time have multifaceted links. Along the time axis, memory is divided into short- and long-term memory. Another popular time-dependent distinction is between new and old memories and anterograde and retrograde memory impairments, respectively. Time-embedment characterizes the processing of mnemonic information, which encompasses the stages of registration, encoding, consolidation, and storage. Along the content axis, memory is partitioned into five long-term memory systems (procedural, priming, perceptual, semantic, and episodic), which are regarded to build up on each other from both a phylogenetic and ontogenetic perspective. These memory systems are accompanied by different niveaus of self and levels of Consciousness. Among these long-term memory systems, the episodic memory system holds a special connection with time, which we aim to detail. In 2005, Tulving defined the episodic memory system as the conjunction of subjective time, Autonoetic Consciousness, and the experiencing self. Drawing on this last definition of the episodic memory, which lays an emphasis on the linkage to the self, Markowitsch has subsequently promoted the use of the construct “episodic-autobiographical” memory system. The episodic-autobiographical memory system features mental time travelling, an essential property that enables one individual to flexibly travel in subjective time in his/her past and, in addition, to flexibly project him/herself in the future. This property provides a “glue” for the self, supporting a coherent view of one's own person. According to Tulving and Markowitsch, it is unlikely that non-human animals possess the capacity for mental time travelling and the ability to “look into future” (“proscopy”). Furthermore, Tulving and Markowitsch had proposed that the ability for mental time travelling is dependent on age and intellect. Subsequent studies have confirmed that mental time travelling is one of the last features of the episodic- autobiographical memory system that achieves full functionality in humans and is the first one to be afflicted by old age, amnesia or neurodegenerative dementias (e.g., Alzheimer's dementia). At the brain level, the emergence of the capacity for mental time travelling is accompanied by ample structural and functional reorganization of elements of the brain networks supporting episodic-autobiographical memory, Autonoetic Consciousness, and self-referential processing. In human beings, damage to certain brain regions may alter the sense and Consciousness of time in quite different ways. Herein, we have the goal to review changes in time perception and Consciousness of time, which accompany different forms of amnesia. Patients with anterograde amnesia manifest an inability to consciously acquire new information for long-term storage and as a consequence are often “stuck in time”. ‘Chronotaraxis’ may accompany certain forms of preponderantly anterograde amnesia, as we aim to exemplify by drawing upon own cases, which were investigated medically, neuropsychologically, and with neuroimaging methods. Patients with retrograde amnesia manifest an inability to consciously retrieve already stored old mnemonic information, usually from the episodic-autobiographical memory domain. They lack the capacity to “ecphorize” old memories. Interestingly, the memory impairments are very similar in the patients with focal traumatic brain injuries and in those with psychogenic forms of amnesia: The patients are unable to engage in mental time traveling into their past. In addition, they show an impaired ability to imagine future personal events, being as a consequence trapped in a “noetic existence”. In psychogenic amnesia with pronounced retrograde memory impairments, we found (via functional neuroimaging) evidence of defective synchronization during retrieval between processing of affectively loaded personal events (that is presumed to preponderantly engage the right hemisphere) and fact-based processing (that is considered to preferentially recruit the left hemisphere). These data are relevant in the light of studies pointing to a right hemisphere bias for higher forms of Consciousness. We conjecture that this synchronization abnormality not only leads to a memory blockade, but also to shrinkage of mental time traveling and loss of Autonoetic Consciousness in psychogenic or functional amnesic conditions.
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The impairment of recollection in functional amnesic states.
Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 2012Co-Authors: Hans J. Markowitsch, Angelica StaniloiuAbstract:Abstract Introduction Functional amnesia refers to various forms of amnesia, which have no direct organic brain basis. Psychological stress and trauma were etiologically linked to its development across various cultures. Methods We have studied several patients with functional amnesia, employing neuropsychological and neuroimaging methods. Herein we provide a review of the current understanding of the phenomenology, neuropsychology and neurobiology of functional amnesia, which we illustrate by reference to five own case descriptions and other cases presented in the literature. Results Functional amnesia is mostly of retrograde nature and presents in the form of a memory blockade or repression to recollect episodic-autobiographical events, which may cover the whole past life. Sometimes, the recollection impairment is localized to certain time epochs. In comparison to functional retrograde amnesia, functional isolated anterograde amnesia is much rarer and data on its neurobiology are scant. In patients with functional amnesia with pronounced retrograde episodic-autobiographical memory impairments, we identified changes in brain metabolism, above all reductions in the temporo-frontal regions of the right hemisphere. Recently, even subtle structural changes in the white matter of the (right) frontal cortex were described in functional retrograde amnesia by other researchers. Conclusions The disruption in recollection in functional amnesia is often accompanied by changes in personality dimensions, pertaining to cognition (self-related processing, theory of mind), Autonoetic Consciousness and affectivity. This suggests that functional amnesia is a multifaceted condition. We hypothesize that the recollection deficit in functional retrograde amnesia primarily reflects a desynchronization between a frontal lobe system, important for Autonoetic Consciousness, and a temporo-amygdalar system, important for evaluation and emotions. Despite assumptions that functional amnesia can always be reversed, several cases of functional amnesia were found to follow a chronic course, suggesting a need for longitudinal prospective studies to quantify possible global cognitive deterioration over time and its neural underpinnings.
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The remains of the day in dissociative amnesia.
Brain Sciences, 2012Co-Authors: Angelica Staniloiu, Hans J. MarkowitschAbstract:Memory is not a unity, but is divided along a content axis and a time axis, respectively. Along the content dimension, five long-term memory systems are described, according to their hierarchical ontogenetic and phylogenetic organization. These memory systems are assumed to be accompanied by different levels of Consciousness. While encoding is based on a hierarchical arrangement of memory systems from procedural to episodic-autobiographical memory, retrieval allows independence in the sense that no matter how information is encoded, it can be retrieved in any memory system. Thus, we illustrate the relations between various long-term memory systems by reviewing the spectrum of abnormalities in mnemonic processing that may arise in the dissociative amnesia—a condition that is usually characterized by a retrieval blockade of episodic-autobiographical memories and occurs in the context of psychological trauma, without evidence of brain damage on conventional structural imaging. Furthermore, we comment on the functions of implicit memories in guiding and even adaptively molding the behavior of patients with dissociative amnesia and preserving, in the absence of Autonoetic Consciousness, the so-called “internal coherence of life”.
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memory Autonoetic Consciousness and the self
Consciousness and Cognition, 2011Co-Authors: Hans J. Markowitsch, Angelica StaniloiuAbstract:Memory is a general attribute of living species, whose diversification reflects both evolutionary and developmental processes. Episodic-autobiographical memory (EAM) is regarded as the highest human ontogenetic achievement and as probably being uniquely human. EAM, Autonoetic Consciousness and the self are intimately linked, grounding, supporting and enriching each other's development and cohesiveness. Their development is influenced by the socio-cultural-linguistic environment in which an individual grows up or lives. On the other hand, through language, textualization and social exchange, all three elements leak into the world and participate to the dynamic shaping and re-shaping of the cultural scaffolding of the self, mental time traveling and EAM formation. Deficits in self-related processing, autonetic Consciousness, emotional processing and mental time traveling can all lead to or co-occur with EAM disturbances, as we illustrate by findings from EAM impairments associated with neurological or psychiatric disorders.
Béatrice Desgranges - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Episodic autobiographical memories over the course of time: Cognitive, neuropsychological and neuroimaging findings
Neuropsychologia, 2009Co-Authors: Pascale Piolino, Béatrice Desgranges, Francis EustacheAbstract:The critical attributes of episodic memory are self, Autonoetic Consciousness and subjectively sensed time. The aim of this paper is to present a theoretical overview of our already published researches into the nature of episodic memory over the course of time. We have developed a new method of assessing autobiographical memory (TEMPau task), which is specially designed to measure these specific aspects, based on the sense of re-experiencing events from across the entire lifespan. Based on our findings of cognitive, neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies, new insights into episodic autobiographical memories are presented, focusing on the effects of age of the subjects interacting with time interval in healthy subjects and lesioned patients. The multifaceted and complex nature of episodic memory is emphasized and it is suggested that mental time travel through subjective time, which allows individuals to re-experience specific past events through a feeling of self-awareness, is the last feature of autobiographical memory to become fully operational in development and the first feature to go in aging and most amnesias. Our findings highlight the critical role of frontotemporal areas in constructive autobiographical memory processes, and especially hippocampus, in re-experiencing episodic details from the recent or more distant past.
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Autonoetic Consciousness in Alzheimer's disease: neuropsychological and PET findings using an episodic learning and recognition task.
Neurobiol Aging, 2007Co-Authors: Géraldine Rauchs, Francis Eustache, Pascale Piolino, Florence Mézenge, Brigitte Landeau, Catherine Lalevée, Alice Pélerin, Fausto Viader, Vincent De La Sayette, Béatrice DesgrangesAbstract:OBJECTIVE: This study aims to map in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) the correlations between resting-state brain glucose utilization measured by FDG-PET and scores reflecting Autonoetic Consciousness in an episodic learning and recognition task. METHODS: Autonoetic Consciousness, that gives a subject the conscious feeling to mentally travelling back in time to relive an event, was assessed using the Remember/Know (R/K) paradigm. RESULTS: AD patients provided less R responses (reflecting Autonoetic Consciousness) and more K ones (indicating the involvement of noetic Consciousness) than healthy controls. Correct recognitions associated with a R response correlated with the metabolism of frontal areas bilaterally whereas those associated with a K response mainly correlated with the metabolism of left parahippocampal gyrus and lateral temporal cortex. CONCLUSIONS: These data show that recollection is impaired in AD and recognition is more based on a feeling of familiarity than in controls. In addition, the findings of our correlative approach indicate that the impairment of episodic memory is mainly subserved by the dysfunction of frontal areas and of the hippocampal region.
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genuine episodic memory deficits and executive dysfunctions in alcoholic subjects early in abstinence
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 2007Co-Authors: Annelise Pitel, Béatrice Desgranges, Helene Beaunieux, Thomas A Witkowski, Francois Vabret, Berengere Guillerygirard, Peggy Quinette, Francis EustacheAbstract:Background: Chronic alcoholism is known to impair episodic memory function, but the specific nature of this impairment is still unclear. Moreover, it has never been established whether episodic memory deficit in alcoholism is an intrinsic memory deficit or whether it has an executive origin. Thus, the objectives are to specify which episodic memory processes are impaired early in abstinence from alcohol and to determine whether they should be regarded as genuine memory deficits or rather as the indirect consequences of executive impairments. Methods: Forty recently detoxified alcoholic inpatients at alcohol entry treatment and 55 group-matched controls underwent a neuropsychological assessment of episodic memory and executive functions. The episodic memory evaluation consisted of 3 tasks complementing each other designed to measure the different episodic memory components (learning, storage, encoding and retrieval, contextual memory, and Autonoetic Consciousness) and 5 executive tasks testing capacities of organization, inhibition, flexibility, updating, and integration. Results: Compared with control subjects, alcoholic patients presented impaired learning abilities, encoding processes, retrieval processes, contextual memory and Autonoetic Consciousness. However, there was no difference between the 2 groups regarding the storage capacities assessed by the rate of forgetting. Concerning executive functions, alcoholic subjects displayed deficits in each executive task used. Nevertheless, stepwise regression analyses showed that only performances on fluency tasks were significantly predictive of some of the episodic memory disorders (learning abilities for 40%, encoding processes for 20%, temporal memory for 21%, and state of Consciousness associated with memories for 26%) in the alcoholic group. Discussion: At alcohol treatment entry, alcoholic patients present genuine episodic memory deficits that cannot be regarded solely as the consequences of executive dysfunctions. These results are in accordance with neuroimaging findings showing hippocampal atrophy. Moreover, given the involvement of episodic memory and executive functions in alcohol treatment, these data could have clinical implications.
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autobiographical memory the sense of recollection and executive functions after severe traumatic brain injury
Cortex, 2007Co-Authors: Pascale Piolino, Béatrice Desgranges, Liliane Manning, Pierre North, Corinne Jokic, Francis EustacheAbstract:Residual disorders of autobiographical memory long after trauma resulting from head injury are rarely assessed, even though they may affect social adjustment and the resumption of daily life. We conducted a thorough study of autobiographical memory in severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients, examined at least one year post-trauma. Twenty-five patients were submitted to a novel and controlled autobiographical procedure specially designed to measure episodic memories (i.e., unique, specific in time and space, and detailed) from their entire life span with two kinds of self-remembering experience. The ability to mentally travel back through time and re-experience the source of acquisition, i.e. Autonoetic Consciousness, was assessed via the "Remember/Know" paradigm and a checking procedure of sense of remembering. Self-perspective in visual imagery, which is also critically involved in episodic recollection, was assessed by the "Field/Observer perspective" paradigm. In addition, the patients underwent a battery of standardized neuropsychological tests to assess episodic and semantic memory, orientation and executive functions. The results showed that the patients, compared with healthy controls, were significantly impaired in recalling episodic autobiographical memories. This impairment was not related to the life period tested or the patients' ages nor the intellectual impairment. Deficits involved disturbances in sense of remembering, visual imagery self-perspective and recollection of spatiotemporal details. Stepwise-regression analyses carried out in the TBI patients revealed a significant relationship between an abnormal sense of remembering and executive dysfunction covering both anterograde and retrograde components. The novel assessment used in this study provides the first detailed evidence of a more fine-grained deficit of autobiographical memory in TBI patients. Indeed, the results suggest that these patients, long after trauma, present Autonoetic Consciousness and self-perspective disorders, which include sense of identity (the self) as a continuous entity across time, probably related to frontal dysfunction.
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The Semantic and Episodic Subcomponents of Famous Person Knowledge: Dissociation in Healthy Subjects
Neuropsychology, 2007Co-Authors: Pascale Piolino, Béatrice Desgranges, Virginie Lamidey, Francis EustacheAbstract:Fifty-two subjects between ages 40 and 79 years were administered a questionnaire assessing their ability to recall semantic information about famous people from 4 different decades and to recollect its episodic source of acquisition together with Autonoetic Consciousness via the remember-know paradigm. In addition, they underwent a battery of standardized neuropsychological tests to assess episodic and semantic memory and executive functions. The analyses of age reveal differences for the episodic source score but no differences between age groups for the semantic scores within each decade. Regardless of the age of people, the analyses also show that semantic memory subcomponents of the famous person test are highly associated with each other as well as with the source component. The recall of semantic information on the famous person test relies on participants' semantic abilities, whereas the recall of its episodic source depends on their executive functions. The present findings confirm the existence of an episodic-semantic distinction in knowledge about famous people. They provide further evidence that personal source and semantic information are at once distinct and highly interactive within the framework of remote memory.
David Clarys - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Self-reference effect and Autonoetic Consciousness in Alzheimer disease: evidence for a persistent affective self in dementia patients.
Alzheimer disease and associated disorders, 2013Co-Authors: Sandrine Kalenzaga, Aurélia Bugaiska, David ClarysAbstract:Episodic memory deficits are predominately the first cognitive impairment in Alzheimer disease (AD). Previous studies have demonstrated that these deficits are specifically linked to Autonoetic Consciousness impairment, whereas noetic Consciousness remains preserved in AD. This study focused on the self-reference effect and examined emotional valence, as it has been shown that emotional content can enhance memory in AD. A task involving recognition of emotional versus neutral adjective traits after self-reference versus semantic encoding, and using the Remember/Know/Guess paradigm was administered to 22 AD patients and 18 normal controls. Results for AD patients show that self-reference increased Autonoetic Consciousness only for emotional and particularly negative trait adjectives. This interesting result indicates that neutral valence does not allow properties of the self to emerge in AD patients because of the progressive loss of the sense of self-linked to the disease, whereas emotional valence does.
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Self-Reference Effect and Autonoetic Consciousness in Alzheimer Disease
Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders, 2013Co-Authors: Sandrine Kalenzaga, Aurélia Bugaiska, David ClarysAbstract:Episodic memory deficits are predominately the first cognitive impairment in Alzheimer disease (AD). Previous studies have demonstrated that these deficits are specifically linked to Autonoetic Consciousness impairment, whereas noetic Consciousness remains preserved in AD. This study focused on the self-reference effect and examined emotional valence, as it has been shown that emotional content can enhance memory in AD. A task involving recognition of emotional versus neutral adjective traits after self-reference versus semantic encoding, and using the Remember/Know/Guess paradigm was administered to 22 AD patients and 18 normal controls. Results for AD patients show that self-reference increased Autonoetic Consciousness only for emotional and particularly negative trait adjectives. This interesting result indicates that neutral valence does not allow properties of the self to emerge in AD patients because of the progressive loss of the sense of self-linked to the disease, whereas emotional valence does.
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Autobiographical memory, Autonoetic Consciousness, and self-perspective in aging.
Psychology and Aging, 2006Co-Authors: Pascale Piolino, Béatrice Desgranges, David Clarys, Bérengère Guillery-girard, Laurence Taconnat, Michel Isingrini, Francis EustacheAbstract:In this study, the authors examined the effects of aging on autobiographical memory in 180 participants by means of a new method designed to assess across 5 lifetime periods the nature of memories-that is, specificity and spontaneity--and the phenomenal experience of remembering--that is, self-perspective and Autonoetic Consciousness--via the field/observer and remember/know paradigms respectively. Age-related differences were found for the specificity and spontaneity of memories and the phenomenal experience of remembering. There was an increase in observer and know responses with age, but a decrease in field and remember responses and in the ability to justify them by recalling sensory-perceptive, affective, or spatiotemporal specific details. This pattern confirms the existence of a semantic-episodic dissociation in autobiographical memory in aging. Moreover, the data support the view that older participants can subjectively "travel back in time" to relive personal events in the most distant past better than those in the recent past.
