Autobiographical memory compromise in individuals with alcohol use disorders: Towards implications for psychotherapy research

Nandrino, Jean‐Louis; Gandolphe, Marie Charlotte; Haj, Mohamad El

doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2017.06.027

Cited by 20 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 101 publications

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“…While the literature on SDM provides a clear-cut identification of their characteristics and their changes according to age or pathology [27–29], no study, to our knowledge, has measured the physiological activation related to the retrieval of SDM. This would provide an objective measure of the emotional and cognitive load of SDM.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What effort is required in retrieving self-defining memories? Specific autonomic responses for integrative and non-integrative memories

et al. 2019

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Self-defining memories (SDM) are autobiographical memories associated with the construction and maintenance of identity, and which play a core role in establishing and achieving goals in life. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effort required in retrieving SDM as reflected by physiological activity. We examined the neurovegetative responses associated with three dimensions of SDM: specificity, integrative meaning and emotional valence. Electrodermal activity (skin conductance response frequency, phasic driver) and the high frequency component of heart rate variability (HF-HRV) were recorded during the retrieval of SDM in 36 healthy participants to assess the activation of the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, respectively. SDM were characterized by three independent investigators with satisfactory inter-rater reliability. Linear mixed effects analyses showed that only the integrative meaning dimension led to a main effect on electrodermal activity. In addition, an interaction effect showed that the retrieval of non-integrative and specific memories was associated with a higher level of electrodermal activity than the retrieval of integrative specific memories. No effects were obtained regarding the HRV indicators. The higher activation of the sympathetic nervous system associated with the retrieval of non-integrative SDM suggests that the ability to derive meaning from personal experiences plays a regulatory role and is a fundamental component in personal adjustment.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What effort is required in retrieving self-defining memories? Specific autonomic responses for integrative and non-integrative memories

et al. 2019

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“…In other addictive behaviors such as substance abuse disorders, poor AM content may impact personal adjustment negatively, resulting in a greater risk of relapse. This could be due to the individual's inability to learn from past experiences, but also to a difficulty in accessing personal achievements that would improve self-esteem and motivation [12,51]. The consequences of AM deficits on the construction of identity and on the adaptability of AN patients need further investigation, as well as their involvement in treating their eating disorder and ruminative functioning.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…General memories encompass categoric summaries of repeated events or extended events in time, whereas specific ones are memories of events lasting less than 24 hours that are well located in time and space and are often characterized by their high emotional charge. To avoid the resurgence of emotions associated with past events, a greater tendency to recall general memories at the expense of specific ones has been described in a wide range of mental health disorders such as depression, anxious disorders and addictive disorders as the phenomenon of overgenerality [9,[11][12][13]. Williams was the first to highlight this emotion-regulation aspect of reduced specificity [14] before describing in the CarFAX model that this difficulty in accessing specific memories may also result from ruminative mechanisms and/or from a deficit in executive functioning in some clinical populations of patients [15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The role of reduced specificity in maintaining clinical symptoms in some populations such as patients suffering from depression or addictive behaviors [12,26,27] as well as patients with eating disorders [20] has also been proposed. Furthermore, the clinical outcomes of individuals with reduced specificity might be negatively impacted, as it limits the benefits of therapy [28] and may delay recovery in clinical populations [27].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Specificity and wealth of autobiographical memories in restrictive and mixed anorexic patients

et al. 2021

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The reduced specificity of positive and negative autobiographical memories observed in anorexic (AN) patients may reflect a global disturbance in their emotional information processing. However, their emotional difficulties may differ according to the subtype of AN, implying possible differences in the manifestation of autobiographical memory impairments. The aims of the study were (1) to confirm the autobiographical memory deficits in AN patients in terms of specificity and wealth of memories, and (2) to compare autobiographical deficits according to the AN subtype: restrictive type (AR) or binge/purging type (AB). Ninety-five non-clinical (NC) individuals and 95 AN patients including 69 AR and 22 AB patients were administered the Williams’ and Scott’s Autobiographical Memory Test. The results confirmed a lack of specificity regardless of emotional valence in the overall AN patient group without any distinction of subtype, which was linked to the number of hospitalizations. When the AN subtype was considered, AR patients demonstrated reduced specificity for negative memories only, suggesting differences in emotional functioning or in the mechanisms underlying reduced specificity between AR and AB patients. Furthermore, the overall AN group demonstrated lower variability and complexity in their memory content than the NC group. However, this difference in the complexity of recalled memories was only found in response to negative cues. When AN subtypes were considered, AR patients showed fewer complex memories than NC individuals. Beyond a reduced specificity, AN patients also depict a poverty in the range of event recall and a difficulty in developing narrative content. The clinical implications of such autobiographical memory deficits need to be further investigated.

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“…Therefore, overgenerality can be associated with functional avoidance strategies in the sense that stopping memory retrieval at a general level rules out access not only to episodic memories but also to the emotional charge that is associated with them (Dalgleish et al, 2008;Williams et al, 2007). A similar suggestion was made by the AMAUD (Autobiographical Memory and Alcohol Use Disorders) model (Nandrino et al, 2017), according to which compromise of emotion regulation in AUD can be associated with a weak aspiration to construct detailed memories during retrieval. The model postulates that distribution of emotional processing in AUD leads not only to the compromise of past thinking but also to that of future thinking, an assumption that has not yet been tested empirically.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

The grey future: Overgenerality of emotional future thinking in alcohol-use disorders

Nandrino

Haj

2019

Drug and Alcohol Dependence

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Background: While previous research has highlighted the overgenerality of future thinking in alcohol-use disorders (AUD), the emotional characteristics of future thinking were not taken into account. We therefore evaluated the ability to retrieve episodic (i.e., events that happened at a particular place and time and lasted for a day or less) emotional future events in AUD. Methods: We invited 36 participants with AUD and 40 control participants to imagine positive, negative and neutral future scenarios and analyzed these scenarios regarding their episodic characteristics (i.e., the ability of participants to imagine future events situated in time and space enriched with phenomenological details). Results: Analysis demonstrated lower episodic positive, negative and neutral future thinking in participants with AUD than in control participants. Participants with AUD also demonstrated lower episodic positive and negative future thinking compared to episodic neutral future thinking. Interestingly, high depression scores were associated with overgenerality of neutral, positive, and negative future thinking in AUD participants. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate overgenerality of both positive and negative future thinking in AUD. This overgenerality may represent an avoidance strategy in which individuals with AUD may try to avoid the hopelessness and/or conflicts that may be activated when constructing future scenarios.

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Autobiographical memory compromise in individuals with alcohol use disorders: Towards implications for psychotherapy research

Cited by 20 publications

References 101 publications

What effort is required in retrieving self-defining memories? Specific autonomic responses for integrative and non-integrative memories

What effort is required in retrieving self-defining memories? Specific autonomic responses for integrative and non-integrative memories

Specificity and wealth of autobiographical memories in restrictive and mixed anorexic patients

The grey future: Overgenerality of emotional future thinking in alcohol-use disorders

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