Prospective Memory Impairment and Executive Dysfunction in Prefrontal Lobe Damaged Patients: Is There a Causal Relationship?

Abstract

Background. The prospective memory (PM) construct is aimed at capturing cognitive operations involved in the successful accomplishment of delayed intentions. It is generally agreed that PM impairment occurs in patients with prefrontal lobes damage. Objective. To evaluate if there is a causal role of a deficit of executive abilities (failures of planning, set-shifting, selective attention, or working memory) over the PM impairment. Methods. We report a detailed investigation of PM and executive abilities in two patients with posttraumatic damage to prefrontal lobes who complained from a reduced compliance with appointments and daily routines. Results. Laboratory tests confirmed a difficulty in fulfilling delayed intentions in response to the occurrence of critical events and elapsed time. In one patient, PM impairment was associated with poor performance on tests investigating planning, working memory, and mental shifting. The other patient performed in the normal range on all executive tests. Conclusions. Despite the frequent claim of a dependence of PM deficits from executive dysfunction, the reported cases demonstrate that this is not necessarily the case. The results are discussed in the light of current hypotheses relating PM impairment to other deficits that commonly occur as a result of damage to the prefrontal lobes.

Relationship Between Future Thinking and Prospective Memory in Alzheimer’s Disease

“…These results replicate earlier findings that AD impairs both event-based prospective memory [5][6][7][8][9] and time-based prospective memory [6,10]. The impairment of prospective memory in AD has been generally attributed to an impairment in working memory and executive functions [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Like prospective memory, future thinking has been found to be impaired in AD as patients typically demonstrate difficulties to generate past and future scenarios that are situated in a specific time and/or space [21][22][23].…”

“…Further, AD impairs prospective memory even more than episodic memory, that is, memory for information encountered in the past [11,12]. The substantial compromise of prospective memory in AD has been attributed to impairment in frontal functions, especially, to impairment in working memory and executive functions [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20].…”

Time-based prospective memory functioning in mild cognitive impairment associated with Parkinson’s disease: relationship with autonomous management of daily living commitments

“…Strategic monitoring of the time passing and shifting from the ongoing activity to intention retrieval are particularly stressed. Coherently, data obtained from healthy subjects (Burgess et al, 2011 ; Costa et al, 2011b , 2013b ; Cona et al, 2015 ) and neurological patients (Kinsella et al, 1996 ; Fish et al, 2010 ; Carlesimo et al, 2014 ) document that the ability to spontaneously retrieve the intention during a PM task is associated with prefrontal cortex activity. However, as discussed above, the PM procedure resembles a multitasking condition in that it requires that subjects keep in memory and autonomously retrieve the intention to perform an action while performing an intercurrent ongoing activity.…”

Prospective memory, working memory, planning, and attention in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: A comparative study

“…Memory deficits largely affect individuals suffering from psychosis (Harvey, Wingo, Burdick, & Baldessarini, ; Wynn, ). As it is well known, schizophrenia is a psychopathological disorder, associated with neuropsychological dysfunctions especially in regard to memory (Carlesimo, Di Paola, Fadda, Caltagirone, & Costa, ). People with schizophrenia have always been found to have reduced cognitive and memory functioning in comparison to their healthy cohorts (Lewis, ; Nehra, Grover, Sharma, Sharma, & Kate, ).…”