Autobiographical memory impairment in genetic generalized epilepsies: neurocognitive and pathophysiological determinants

TL;DR

The study explores how genetic generalized epilepsy affects autobiographical memory and identifies cognitive and neurological factors contributing to memory impairments in patients.

Contribution

The study reveals specific neurocognitive deficits in autobiographical memory retrieval among GGE patients and links them to visual cognition.

Findings

GGE patients showed impaired retrieval of childhood and recent autobiographical episodic and semantic memory.

GGE patients performed worse in episodic recall, visuospatial memory, and verbal-executive functions compared to healthy controls.

A connection between autobiographical memory systems and visuoperceptual processing was identified in GGE patients.

Abstract

The neuropsychological breakdowns of autobiographical memory (AM) in adults suffering from genetic generalized epilepsy (GGE) are far from being understood and largely neglected.

We aimed at identifying AM impairments in GGE by analyzing neurocognitive deficits in illness-related variables possibly affecting AM.

Patients with GGE were compared to healthy controls (HCs), through semistructured interviews on AM, as well as neuropsychological measures to identify potential determinants of AM impairment.

A single GGE group was formed by including patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME), juvenile absence epilepsy (JAE), and epilepsy with generalized tonic-clonic seizures alone (EGTCA). Both GGE patients and HCs were tested for differential impairments in autobiographical episodic memory (AEM) and/or autobiographical semantic memory (ASEM), as well as other episodic- and/or semantic-memory and executive-function domains.

The GGE patients exhibited overall impairment in autobiographical episodic and semantic information retrieval compared to HCs, both regarding childhood and the recent past. Furthermore, GGE patients demonstrated significantly poorer performance in immediate and delayed episodic recall, visuospatial working memory, visuoperceptual organization, face recognition memory, and verbal-executive functions compared to HCs. A distinct visuoperceptual involvement in retrieving childhood autobiographical episodic and semantic information has emerged, suggesting a potential connection between the latter AM systems and visual cognition.