Amnesia Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Amnesia, including details on memory loss, causes, treatment, brain injury,.

Autobiographical amnesia and accelerated forgetting in transient epileptic amnesia.

Manes F, Graham KS, Zeman A, de Luján Calcagno M, Hodges JR

Cognitive Neurology Division, Department of Neurology, Raul Carrea Institute for Neurological Research (FLENI), Buenos Aires, Argentina.

BACKGROUND: Recurrent brief isolated episodes of amnesia associated with epileptiform discharges on EEG recordings have been interpreted as a distinct entity termed transient epileptic amnesia (TEA). Patients with TEA often complain of autobiographical amnesia for recent and remote events, but show normal anterograde memory. OBJECTIVE: To investigate (a) accelerated long term forgetting and (b) autobiographical memory in a group of patients with TEA. METHODS: Seven patients with TEA and seven age matched controls were evaluated on a range of anterograde memory tasks in two sessions separated by 6 weeks and by the Galton-Crovitz test of cued autobiographical memory. RESULTS: Patients with TEA showed abnormal long term forgetting of verbal material, with virtually no recall after 6 weeks. In addition, there was impaired recall of autobiographical memories from the time periods 1985-89 and 1990-94 but not from 1995-1999. CONCLUSIONS: TEA is associated with accelerated loss of new information and impaired remote autobiographical memory. There are a number of possible explanations including ongoing subclinical ictal activity, medial temporal lobe damage as a result of seizure, or subtle ischaemic pathology. Future analyses should seek to clarify the relationship between aetiology, seizure frequency, and degree of memory impairment.

Published 19 September 2005 in J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry, 76(10): 1387-91.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Amnesia Research Today. All Rights Reserved.