Audrey Noël

The relationship between working memory and episodic memory disorders in transient global amnesia.

In a previous study, we investigated the relationship between the disorders of both episodic memory and working memory in the acute phase of transient global amnesia (TGA). Since executive functions were spared, another dysfunction may be responsible for the binding and maintenance of multimodal informations and contribute to the encoding disorders observed in some patients [Quinette, P., Guillery, B., Desgranges, B., de la Sayette, V., Viader, F., & Eustache, F. (2003). Working memory and executive functions in transient global amnesia. Brain, 126, 1917-1934.]. The aim of this present study was to assess the functions of binding and maintenance of multimodal information during TGA and explore their involvement in episodic memory disorders. We therefore conducted a more thorough investigation of working memory in 16 new patients during the acute phase of TGA using two tasks designed to assess the binding process and both dimensions of the maintenance, namely the active storage and the memory load ability. We also investigated the nature of the episodic memory impairment in distinguishing between the performance of patients with preferential encoding deficits and those of patients with preferential storage disorders on the episodic memory task. This distinction was closely related to the severity of amnesia, i.e. an encoding disorder was observed rather in the early phase of TGA. The results showed that while the functions of binding and maintenance of multimodal information were intact in patients with storage disorders, they were impaired in the case of encoding deficits. These results are interpreted in the recent framework of episodic buffer proposed by Baddeley [Baddeley, A. D. (2000). The episodic buffer: A new component of working memory? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 417-423] that represents an interface between working memory and episodic memory.

Psychopathological factors, memory disorders and transient global amnesia

BACKGROUND Some studies have shown the presence of psychopathological disorders in transient global amnesia. AIMS To determine whether transient global amnesia is associated with psychopathological disorders and to assess the influence of these psychopathological disorders on memory impairments. METHOD Levels of anxiety and depression before and during transient global amnesia were rated. Memory performances were assessed by means of original episodic memory tasks and working memory tasks. These data were collected in 17 individuals observed during the very acute phase, 18 individuals examined in the peri-acute phase and 26 controls. RESULTS During the acute phase, participants with transient global amnesia displayed a higher level of anxiety and a more depressed mood than controls. An alteration of emotional state, as measured by the Adjective Mood Scale, was correlated with deficits in anterograde memory. CONCLUSIONS Transient global amnesia comprises sudden changes in peoples emotional state, which has a major impact on and interacts with episodic memory impairment.

How psychopathological factors affect both the onset of and recovery from Transient Global Amnesia

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. How psychopathological factors affect both the onset of and recovery from Transient Global Amnesia Audrey Noël, Peggy Quinette, Bérengère Guillery-Girard, Jacques Dayan, Stéphanie Katis, Pascale Piolino, Pascale Abadie, Vincent De La Sayette, Sophie Marquis, Fausto Viader, et al.

Towards a left MTL specialization for arbitrary-associative learning? A multiple-case study

Since the famous case of HM provided unquestionable evidence for the involvement of medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures in memory, a dominant neuropsychological model raised up in the 1970’s. Brenda Milner proposed that “the most significant variable (to explain post-surgery memory outcome in temporal lobe epilepsy) is the verbal or non-verbal character of the material to be retained” [1]. This model predicts that verbal and non-verbal memories are homogenous and independent systems, respectively relying upon left and right temporal lobes. Yet, series of cases of amnesia following unilateral temporal lobectomy have been documented, drawing a more complex picture [2]. Moreover, cases of poorer verbalmemory outcome after right TL surgery had been reported [3], and other studies underlined deficits in spatial learning after left surgery. Taken together, those data strongly challenges the dominant material-specific view. In linewith those challenging data,other authors suggested that beyond material-specificity, task-specifi-