Emotional and Phenomenological Properties of Odor-Evoked Autobiographical Memories in Alzheimer’s Disease

Glachet, Ophélie; Haj, Mohamad El

doi:10.3390/brainsci9060135

Cited by 27 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…Studies along this line could also stimulate applied research in clinical psychology, and especially the development of reminiscence therapies ( Duru Aşiret and Kapucu, 2016 ; Glachet et al, 2018 ; Mileski et al, 2018 ; Kirk et al, 2019 ). Among the different approaches, the use of sensory-based reminiscence therapy appears particularly promising since sensory cues could provide a more direct access to autobiographical memories and thus minimize the demand on executive control processes ( Kirk and Berntsen, 2018 ; Glachet and El Haj, 2019 ). For instance, the use of odors or music cues have been found to enhance the specificity and the phenomenological experience of memories evoked by people with Alzheimer’s disease ( El Haj et al, 2012 ; Glachet and El Haj, 2019 ), and odors also improved the access to self-concepts ( Glachet and El Haj, 2020 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Among the different approaches, the use of sensory-based reminiscence therapy appears particularly promising since sensory cues could provide a more direct access to autobiographical memories and thus minimize the demand on executive control processes ( Kirk and Berntsen, 2018 ; Glachet and El Haj, 2019 ). For instance, the use of odors or music cues have been found to enhance the specificity and the phenomenological experience of memories evoked by people with Alzheimer’s disease ( El Haj et al, 2012 ; Glachet and El Haj, 2019 ), and odors also improved the access to self-concepts ( Glachet and El Haj, 2020 ). These previous results thus contrast with some of our current findings in healthy subjects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Proust Machine: What a Public Science Event Tells Us About Autobiographical Memory and the Five Senses

et al. 2021

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Our senses are constantly stimulated in our daily lives but we have only a limited understanding of how they affect our cognitive processes and, especially, our autobiographical memory. Capitalizing on a public science event, we conducted the first empirical study that aimed to compare the relative influence of the five senses on the access, temporal distribution, and phenomenological characteristics of autobiographical memories in a sample of about 400 participants. We found that the access and the phenomenological features of memories varied as a function of the type of sensory cues, but not their temporal distribution. With regard to their influence on autobiographical memory, an overlap between some senses was found, with on one hand, olfaction and taste and, on the other, vision, audition, and touch. We discuss these findings in the light of theories of perception, memory, and the self, and consider methodological implications of the sensory cuing technique in memory research, as well as clinical implications for research in psychopathological and neuropsychological populations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Proust Machine: What a Public Science Event Tells Us About Autobiographical Memory and the Five Senses

et al. 2021

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“…As the French author Marcel Proust described long ago (Proust, 1927), referenced in his work A la Recherche du Temps Perdu which translates to In Search of Lost Time -"Yet a single scent already breathed long ago, may once again both be in the present and the past, be real without being present". Sensory experiences like olfaction and gustation have the ability to produce the evocation of vivid autobiographical memories of the distant past (Toffolo et al, Grella et al, 15 2012;Zucco et al, 2012;Daniels and Vermetten, 2016;Glachet and El Haj, 2019). This spontaneous process which we have all experienced at one time or another is often referred to as the Proust Phenomenon.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Odor Modulates the Temporal Dynamics of Fear Memory Consolidation

Grella

Fortin

McKissick

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Number of words in the abstract: 267 Number of characters w spaces (main text excluding abstract, references & fig legends): 54,606 Grella et al., 2ABSTRACT Systems consolidation (SC) theory proposes that recent, contextually rich memories are stored in the hippocampus (HPC). As these memories become remote, they are believed to rely more heavily on cortical structures within the prefrontal cortex (PFC), where they lose much of their contextual detail and become schematized. Odor is a particularly evocative cue for intense remote memory recall and despite these memories being remote, they are highly contextual. In instances such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), intense remote memory recall can occur years after trauma, which seemingly contradicts SC. We hypothesized that odor may shift the organization of salient or fearful memories such that when paired with an odor at the time of encoding, they are delayed in the de-contextualization process that occurs across time, and retrieval may still rely on the HPC, where memories are imbued with contextually rich information, even at remote time points. We investigated this by tagging odor-and non-odorassociated fear memories in male c57BL/6 mice and assessed recall and c-Fos expression in the dorsal CA1 (dCA1) and prelimbic cortex (PL) 1 d or 21 d later. In support of SC, our data showed that recent memories were more dCA1-dependent whereas remote memories were more PL-dependent. However, we also found that odor influenced this temporal dynamic biasing the memory system from the PL to the dCA1 when odor cues were present.Behaviorally, inhibiting the dCA1 with activity-dependent DREADDs had no effect on recall at 1 d and unexpectedly caused an increase in freezing at 21 d. Together, these findings demonstrate that odor can shift the organization of fear memories at the systems level.Grella et al., 3

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“…To our knowledge, only five studies have examined the impact of odor on autobiographical remembering in AD [123,[160][161][162][163]. All studies have demonstrated the positive effects of odor on personal event memories.…”

Section: Emotional Sensorial Stimulations and Self-consciousness In Amentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The team of Dr. Glachet [162] also found a positive effect of odor exposure on recent autobiographical memories in AD. Additionally, Glachet & El Haj [161] investigated emotional characteristics (arousal and valence) and subjective reliving of odor-evoked autobiographical memories in AD. They observed higher arousal, subjective reliving, and more positive memories after odor exposure compared with the odor-free condition only in the AD group.…”

Section: Emotional Sensorial Stimulations and Self-consciousness In Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Could Self-Consciousness Be Enhanced in Alzheimer’s Disease? An Approach from Emotional Sensorial Stimulation

Arroyo-Anlló

Sánchez

2020

JAD

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Alzheimer’s disease (AD) provides a valuable field of research into impairment of self-consciousness (SC), because AD patients have a reduced capacity to understand their mental world, to experience and relive previous personal events, as well as to interpret thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about themselves. Several studies observed that AD patients had an altered SC, but not a complete abolition of it. Emotions are an integral part of the construction of personal identity, therefore of Self. In general, most studies on emotion in AD patients have observed that emotion is not completely abolished and it lets them better remember autobiographical events with greater emotional charge. The positive effect of autobiographical memories rich in emotional content, evoked directly/automatically by sensorial stimuli such as familiar odors or music, could be used to reestablish/reinforce the permanence and coherence of the Self in AD. We studied the research of empirical evidence supporting the power of the sensorial cues associated with emotion, which could be capable of enhancing the SC in AD. We presented the studies about “Emotional stimulations” using odor, music, or taste cues in AD. All studies have shown to have a positive impact on SC in AD patients such as odor-evoked autobiographical memories, taste/odor-evoked autobiographical memories, emotional sensorial stimulation using musical cues, and multi-sensorial stimulations using healing gardens. We found research supporting the notion that emotional sensorial stimulations can even temporarily exalt memory, affective state, and personal identity, that is, the SC in AD. The emotional sensory stimulations could be used as a tool to activate the SC in AD and hence improve the quality of life of patients and caregivers.

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Emotional and Phenomenological Properties of Odor-Evoked Autobiographical Memories in Alzheimer’s Disease

Cited by 27 publications

References 74 publications

The Proust Machine: What a Public Science Event Tells Us About Autobiographical Memory and the Five Senses

The Proust Machine: What a Public Science Event Tells Us About Autobiographical Memory and the Five Senses

Odor Modulates the Temporal Dynamics of Fear Memory Consolidation

Could Self-Consciousness Be Enhanced in Alzheimer’s Disease? An Approach from Emotional Sensorial Stimulation

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