Article

Network-wide abnormalities explain memory variability in hippocampal amnesia

Details

Citation

Argyropoulos GPD, Loane C, Roca-Fernandez A, Lage-Martinez C, Gurau O, Irani SR & Butler CR (2019) Network-wide abnormalities explain memory variability in hippocampal amnesia. eLife, 8, Art. No.: e46156. https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.46156

Abstract
Patients with hippocampal amnesia play a central role in memory neuroscience but the neural underpinnings of amnesia are hotly debated. We hypothesized that focal hippocampal damage is associated with changes across the extended hippocampal system and that these, rather than hippocampal atrophy per se, would explain variability in memory between patients. We assessed this hypothesis in a uniquely large cohort of patients (n = 38) after autoimmune limbic encephalitis, a syndrome associated with focal structural hippocampal pathology. These patients showed impaired recall, recognition and maintenance of new information, and remote autobiographical amnesia. Besides hippocampal atrophy, we observed correlatively reduced thalamic and entorhinal cortical volume, resting-state inter-hippocampal connectivity and activity in posteromedial cortex. Associations of hippocampal volume with recall, recognition, and remote memory were fully mediated by wider network abnormalities, and were only direct in forgetting. Network abnormalities may explain the variability across studies of amnesia and speak to debates in memory neuroscience.

Keywords
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology; General Immunology and Microbiology; General Neuroscience; General Medicine

Journal
eLife: Volume 8

StatusPublished
FundersWellcome Trust, British Medical Association, British Medical Association, Epilepsy Research UK, US-UK Fulbright Commission, Medical Research Council and UCB-Oxford University Alliance
Publication date31/12/2019
Publication date online08/07/2019
Date accepted by journal05/07/2019
URLhttp://hdl.handle.net/1893/31302
PublishereLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
eISSN2050-084X

People (1)

Dr Georgios Argyropoulos

Dr Georgios Argyropoulos

Lecturer in Psychology, Psychology

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