Material-Specific Difficulties in Episodic Memory Tasks in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

The study examines acute, material-specific secondary memory performance in 26 patients with mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) and 26 healthy controls, matched on demographic variables and indexes of crystallized intelligence. Neuropsychological tests were used to evaluate primary and secondary memory, executive functions, and verbal fluency. Participants were also tested on episodic memory tasks involving words, pseudowords, pictures of common objects, and abstract kaleidoscopic images. Patients showed reduced performance on episodic memory measures, and on tasks associated with visuospatial processing and executive function (Trail Making Test part B, semantic fluency). Significant differences between groups were also noted for correct rejections and response bias on the kaleidoscope task. MTBI patients' reduced performance on memory tasks for complex, abstract stimuli can be attributed to a dysfunction in the strategic component of memory process.

Mild traumatic brain injury: Graph-model characterization of brain networks for episodic memory

“…Patients and healthy control participants were individually matched on demographic variables and also on a number of psychological and cognitive measures that may affect memory performance (including verbal IQ, presence of attention/concentration problems, and symptoms of mood and anxiety disorders). Group differences in task performance in this cohort were subtle: although both groups displayed comparable reaction times and number of correct target detections (suggesting similar performance efficiency), MTBI patients showed some difficulty in rejecting non-target stimuli and enhanced response bias (Tsirka et al, 2010). These findings were restricted, however, to the kaleidoscope task.…”

“…The present study explores potential correlates of the relatively subtle, task-specific changes in performance reported by Tsirka et al (2010) on EEG measures obtained during performance of the same tasks. Several investigations have applied electrophysiological methods (EEG, MEG, and ERPs) to study brain function in MTBI (e.g.…”

“…The main goal of the study was to assess global cortical connectivity and network organization in the acute phase of MTBI in comparison to age-, education-, gender-, and IQ-matched, neurologically healthy control participants. Estimates of network organization in the same subjects were obtained at rest and during the encoding and recognition phases of the same episodic memory tasks reported by Tsirka et al (2010). The MTBI patients were expected to differ from control participants over a wide range of frequencies including theta and three, individually-determined alpha sub-bands.…”

“…These deficits, however, are often very mild and not clinically significant at the individual patient level. In one of the few studies of material-specific episodic memory difficulties in the acute phase following MTBI, Tsirka et al (2010) examined 26 MTBI patients and 26 age-, education, and IQ-matched controls on a series of neuropsychological tests evaluating primary and secondary memory, executive functions, and verbal fluency. Participants were also tested on experimental episodic memory tasks involving words, pseudowords, pictures of common objects and abstract kaleidoscopic images.…”

Automating the assessment of visual dysfunction after traumatic brain injury

“…Patients with mTBI have been shown to do less well in episodic memory tasks [52]. There are many methods for testing visual and auditory memory and some automated systems have already been applied to the study of brain injury patients [53].…”