Neuropsychological and SPECT scan findings during and after transient global amnesia: evidence for the differential impairment of remote episodic memory.
A patient had neuropsychological testing during, and at two days and seven weeks after a transient global amnesia (TGA) attack. During the attack she exhibited a characteristically profound anterograde amnesia but a limited remote memory loss; the most striking impairment was a deficit in personal episodic memory revealed by her performance on the Autobiographical Memory Interview. Personal and general semantic information was less impaired although there were indications of a temporal gradient in the impairment. When tested after the attack, she demonstrated normal anterograde and retrograde memory. A SPECT scan performed during TGA showed a focal reduction in cerebral perfusion in the postero-medial temporal lobes bilaterally which had resolved after seven weeks.
Evans
J
J
MRC Applied Psychology Unit, Cambridge, UK.
Wilson
B
B
Wraight
E P
EP
Hodges
J R
JR
D000647:Amnesia / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon