Anomalies of Autobiographical Memory

Abstract

Objectives:In this paper, I review three ‘anomalies’ or disorders in autobiographical memory: neurological retrograde amnesia (RA), spontaneous confabulation, and psychogenic amnesia.Methods:Existing theories are reviewed, their limitations considered, some of my own empirical findings briefly described, and possible interpretations proposed and interspersed with illustrative case-reports.Results:In RA, there may be an important retrieval component to the deficit, and factors at encoding may give rise to the relative preservation of early memories (and the reminiscence bump) which manifests as a temporal gradient. Spontaneous confabulation appears to be associated with a damaged ‘filter’ in orbitofrontal and ventromedial frontal regions. Consistent with this, an empirical study has shown that both the initial severity of confabulation and its subsequent decline are associated with changes in the executive function (especially in cognitive estimate errors) and inversely with the quantity of accurate autobiographical memories retrieved. Psychogenic amnesia can be ‘global’ or ‘situation-specific’. The former is associated with a precipitating stress, depressed mood, and (often) a past history of a transient neurological amnesia. In these circumstances, frontal control mechanisms can inhibit retrieval of autobiographical memories, and even the sense of ‘self’ (identity), while compromised medial temporal function prevents subsequent retrieval of what occurred during a ‘fugue’. An empirical investigation of psychogenic amnesia and some recent imaging studies have provided findings consistent with this view.Conclusions:Taken together, these various observations point to the importance of frontal ‘control’ systems (in interaction with medial temporal/hippocampal systems) in the retrieval and, more particularly, the disrupted retrieval of ‘old’ memories.

Neural Circuits, Microtubule Processing, Brain’s Electromagnetic Field—Components of Self-Awareness

“…These statements are in agreement with known findings that impairment in the prefrontal and parietal regions lead to deterioration of self-awareness of persons suffering from Alzheimer's disease and identity disorders [57]. Michael Kopelman, considering disturbances in the retrieval of autobiographical memory, emphasizes the importance of frontal 'control' systems in interaction with medial temporal and hippocampal systems [58]. The contribution of prefrontal executive processes to creating a sense of self is recognized by many researchers [57][58][59][60].…”

“…Michael Kopelman, considering disturbances in the retrieval of autobiographical memory, emphasizes the importance of frontal 'control' systems in interaction with medial temporal and hippocampal systems [58]. The contribution of prefrontal executive processes to creating a sense of self is recognized by many researchers [57][58][59][60]. Researchers who successfully visualized the change in brain function after administering psilocybin make reference to psychological terms when discussing self-awareness disorders, talking about "ego-dissolution" [61].…”

Systems consolidation, transformation and reorganization: Multiple Trace Theory, Trace Transformation Theory and their Competitors

“…Because a major distinction between SCT and MTT concerned differences in the fate of episodic and semantic memory, new psychological tests were devised that were sensitive to those differences (Kopelman et al, 1989;Kopelman & Marsh, 2018;Levine et al, 2002;Piolino et al, 2003Piolino et al, , 2009Renoult et al, 2020) enabling investigators to track them over time. To track memories over long time intervals, investigators examined autobiographical memory and memory for public events and personalities, and distinguished between episodic and semantic contributions to them (Moscovitch et al, 2005(Moscovitch et al, , 2006Sekeres et al, 2016Sekeres et al, , 2018Squire et al, 2015;Kopelman, 2019). With respect to autobiographical memory, one can test the two aspects separately as the Autobiographical Memory Inventory does by asking people to name personal facts they know about themselves at different times in their life (name of high school they attended) and by recounting an episode that occurred at different times (Kopelman et al, 1989).…”

Evaluación neuropsicológica en estados confabulatorios

“…La primera, considerada como la respuesta incorrecta a una pregunta o situación en las que el sujeto se siente obligado a decir algo. La confabulación espontánea, por su parte, se da sin ningún detonante obvio, y se ha relacionado con el deterioro en el monitoreo de la realidad y la fuente de memoria, resultado de la superimposición frontal en una amnesia orgánica; este tipo de confabulación a menudo resulta dificil de distinguir de las alucinaciones, hecho que sugiere un solapamiento entre ambas (Bajo et al, 2016;Dalla Barba et al, 2020;Coltheart, 2016;Dalla Barba, Guerin, et al, 2018;Dalla Barba et al, 2017;Kopelman, 2019;Mendez, 2019;Rensen et al, 2016;Rensen et al, 2020, Rensen et al, 2015Shingaki et al, 2015).…”

“…4. Confabulación espontánea comportamental, común en pacientes amnésicos y desorientados, lo que los lleva a actuar según sus falsas ideas y tiene correspondencia con el síndrome originalmente descrito por Korsakoff (Kopelman, 2019;Rensen et al, 2015;Schnider et al, 2016). Por último, Ichino (2018) se refiere a las confabulaciones paradigmáticas como típicamente infundadas, sin intenciones engañosas, que involucran un componente motivacional, y desempeñan una función de relleno de vacíos.…”