Autobiographical amnesia and accelerated forgetting in transient epileptic amnesia.
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.
Manes
F
F
Cognitive Neurology Division, Department of Neurology, Raul Carrea Institute for Neurological Research (FLENI), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Graham
K S
KS
Zeman
A
A
de Luján Calcagno
M
M
Hodges
J R
JR
D000368:Aged; D000647:Amnesia / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001325:Autobiographies as Topic; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000150:complications*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013997:Time Factors