Spatial Visualization Ability Mediates the Male Advantage in Spatial and Visual Episodic Memory

We analyzed the effects of patterns of brain lesions from penetrating head injuries on memory performance in participants of the Vietnam Head Injury Study (Grafman et al., 1988). Classes of lesion patterns were determined by mixture modeling (L. K. Muthén & B. O. Muthén, 1998-2004). Memory performance was assessed for short-term memory (STM), semantic memory, verbal episodic memory, and visual episodic memory. The striking finding was that large STM deficits were observed in all classes of brain-injured individuals, regardless of lesion location pattern. These effects persist despite frequent concomitant effects of depressive symptomatology and substance dependence. Smaller deficits in semantic memory, verbal episodic memory, and visual episodic memory depended on lesion location, in a manner roughly consistent with the existing neuropsychological literature. The theoretical and clinical implications of the striking, seemingly permanent STM deficits in individuals with penetrating head injuries are discussed.

Memory impairment in alcohol use disorder is associated with regional frontal brain volumes

Aging is associated with performance reductions in executive function and episodic memory, although there is substantial individual variability in cognition among older adults. One factor that may be positively associated with cognition in aging is physical activity. To date, few studies have objectively assessed physical activity in young and older adults, and examined whether physical activity is differentially associated with cognition in aging. Young (n=29, age 18-31 years) and older adults (n=31, ages 55-82 years) completed standardized neuropsychological testing to assess executive function and episodic memory capacities. An experimental face-name relational memory task was administered to augment assessment of episodic memory. Physical activity (total step count and step rate) was objectively assessed using an accelerometer, and hierarchical regressions were used to evaluate relationships between cognition and physical activity. Older adults performed more poorly on tasks of executive function and episodic memory. Physical activity was positively associated with a composite measure of visual episodic memory and face-name memory accuracy in older adults. Physical activity associations with cognition were independent of sedentary behavior, which was negatively correlated with memory performance. Physical activity was not associated with cognitive performance in younger adults. Physical activity is positively associated with episodic memory performance in aging. The relationship appears to be strongest for face-name relational memory and visual episodic memory, likely attributable to the fact that these tasks make strong demands on the hippocampus. The results suggest that physical activity relates to cognition in older, but not younger adults.

Patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) show preserved or mildly impaired working memory, despite their deficits in episodic memory. We aimed to identify performance and/or neural differences between aMCI patients and matched controls on a standard working memory fMRI task. Neuropsychological assessment demonstrated aMCI impairments in verbal and visual episodic long-term memory, with intact IQ and executive function. Participants completed a standard three-level N-back task where patients were unimpaired. Functional activations in the control group were found in expected areas, including the inferior parietal lobule and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Group differences were found in the insula and lingual gyrus and, in a region of interest analysis, in the hippocampus. In all cases, these were caused by an absence of task-related deactivations in the aMCI group. The results are consistent with reports of failure in task-related deacivations in aMCI and could be early indications of pathology.

Slow wave sleep (SWS) is highly relevant for verbal and non-verbal/spatial memory in healthy individuals, but also in people with epilepsy. However, contradictory findings exist regarding the effect of seizures on overnight memory retention, particularly relating to procedural and non-verbal memory, and thorough examination of episodic memory retention with ecologically valid tests is missing. This research explores the interaction of SWS duration with epilepsy-relevant factors, as well as the relation of spectral characteristics of SWS on overnight retention of procedural, verbal, and episodic memory. In an epilepsy monitoring unit, epilepsy patients (N = 40) underwent learning, immediate and 12h delayed testing of memory retention for a fingertapping task (procedural memory), a word-pair task (verbal memory), and an innovative virtual reality task (episodic memory). We used multiple linear regression to examine the impact of SWS duration, spectral characteristics of SWS, seizure occurrence, medication, depression, seizure type, gender, and epilepsy duration on overnight memory retention. Results indicated that none of the candidate variables significantly predicted overnight changes for procedural memory performance. For verbal memory, the occurrence of tonic-clonic seizures negatively impacted memory retention and higher psychoactive medication load showed a tendency for lower verbal memory retention. Episodic memory was significantly impacted by epilepsy duration, displaying a potential nonlinear impact with a longer duration than 10years negatively affecting memory performance. Higher drug load of anti-seizure medication was by tendency related to better overnight retention of episodic memory. Contrary to expectations longer SWS duration showed a trend towards decreased episodic memory performance. Analyses on associations between memory types and EEG band power during SWS revealed lower alpha-band power in the frontal right region as significant predictor for better episodic memory retention. In conclusion, this research reveals that memory modalities are not equally affected by important epilepsy factors such as duration of epilepsy and medication, as well as SWS spectral characteristics.

Evidence is accumulating from in vitro and rodent studies that vitamin K plays a role in brain and could have a positive effect on cognitive function, especially during aging. The present study examined cross‐sectional associations between vitamin K status and cognitive performance in 320 cognitively‐healthy men and women aged 70–85 y from the Québec Longitudinal Study on Nutrition and Successful Aging. Vitamin K status was measured as serum phylloquinone concentrations. Verbal and non‐verbal episodic memory, executive functions, and speed of processing were assessed using 13 cognitive scores from 6 tests. The median serum phylloquinone concentration was 1.06 nmol/L (range, 0.08–23.57 nmol/L). After adjustment for covariates including diet quality and serum lipid profile, higher serum phylloquinone concentration (log‐transformed) was associated with better cognitive scores (Z‐transformed) on the second (β = 0.47; 95% CI = 0.13 to 0.82), the third (β = 0.41; 95% CI = 0.06 to 0.75), and the 20‐min delayed (β = 0.47; 95% CI = 0.12 to 0.82) trials of the RL/RI‐16 Free and Cued Recall Task, a test of verbal episodic memory. No associations were found with non‐verbal episodic memory, executive functions, and speed of processing. Overall, our study provides evidence for a role of vitamin K in episodic verbal memory among healthy older adults. This research was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Emerging literature suggests that lifestyle factors may play an important role in reducing age-related cognitive decline. There have, however, been few studies investigating the role of cognitively stimulating leisure activities in maintaining cognitive health. This study sought to identify changes in cognitive performance with age and to investigate associations of cognitive performance with several key cognitively stimulating leisure activities. Over 65,000 participants provided demographic and lifestyle information and completed tests of grammatical reasoning, spatial working memory, verbal working memory and episodic memory. Regression analyses suggested that frequency of engaging in Sudoku or similar puzzles was significantly positively associated with grammatical reasoning, spatial working memory and episodic memory scores. Furthermore, for participants aged under 65 years, frequency of playing non-cognitive training computer games was also positively associated with performance in the same cognitive domains. The results also suggest that grammatical reasoning and episodic memory are particularly vulnerable to age-related decline. Further investigation to determine the potential benefits of participating in Sudoku puzzles and non-cognitive computer games is indicated, particularly as they are associated with grammatical reasoning and episodic memory, cognitive domains found to be strongly associated with age-related cognitive decline. Results of this study have implications for developing improved guidance for the public regarding the potential value of cognitively stimulating leisure activities. The results also suggest that grammatical reasoning and episodic memory should be targeted in developing appropriate outcome measures to assess efficacy of future interventions, and in developing cognitive training programmes to prevent or delay cognitive decline.

High field structural MRI reveals specific episodic memory correlates in the subfields of the hippocampus

BackgroundRecently there have been ongoing efforts to harmonise research across dementia cohorts from different centres and countries. Establishing comparability of cognitive test performance across languages and educational levels therefore becomes crucial. Differences due to educational disparity or linguistic variability will need to be differentiated from more genuine differences due to disease. This is especially important in countries like India that are characterised by a socioculturally heterogeneous population. To address this, the Indian Council of Medical Research‐Neuro Cognitive Test Battery (ICMR‐NCTB) was developed and validated to diagnose dementia in five Indian languages. In this study, we aimed to investigate the cognitive construct and comparability of the ICMR‐NCTB across five Indian languages using confirmatory factor analysis and measurement invariance.Methods991 healthy literate controls with normal cognition (Telugu = 302; Hindi = 191, Malayalam = 195; Bengali = 135 and Kannada = 168) were assessed with the ICMR NCTB which includes tests of attention/executive function, verbal and visual episodic memory, language and visuospatial Functions. The dimensional structure of ICMR‐NCTB was studied with regard to its cognitive constructs, and measurement invariance across five different Indian languages was evaluated.ResultsConfirmatory factor analysis of the data demonstrated that a five factor model in which the tests were divided into the cognitive domains: attention/executive function, verbal memory, non‐verbal memory, language and visuospatial functions provided the best model fit both within and across all five languages. Analysis of factorial invariance across groups indicated that configural and metric invariance were achieved, thereby suggesting that the tests of the ICMR‐NCTB measure the same cognitive construct across different languages. On analyzing scalar invariance, non‐invariance of intercept was demonstrated, indicating a possible measurement bias between the different language groups.ConclusionsThe study results indicate that cognitive constructs measured by the tests in the ICMR‐NCTB across the five different Indian languages are the same. However, there are differences that influence the performance of subjects across languages groups. The study findings have significant implications for harmonising cognitive test data in dementia research that involves linguistically diverse cohorts.

Impaired motor learning in individuals with Parkinson's disease is often attributed to deficits in executive function, which serves as an important cognitive process supporting motor learning. However, less is known about the role of other cognitive domains and its association with motor learning in Parkinson's disease. The objective of this study was to investigate the associations between motor learning and multiple domains of cognitive performance in individuals with Parkinson's disease. Twenty-nine participants with Parkinson's disease received comprehensive neuropsychological testing, followed by practice of a bimanual finger sequence task. A retention test of the finger sequence task was completed 24 h later. Hierarchical linear regressions were used to examine the associations between motor learning (acquisition rate and retention) and cognitive performance in five specific cognitive domains, while controlling for age, sex, and years of Parkinson's disease diagnosis. We found that a higher acquisition rate was associated with better episodic memory, specifically better recall in visual episodic memory, in individuals with Parkinson's disease. No significant associations were observed between retention and cognitive performance in any domains. The association between motor acquisition and episodic memory indicates an increased dependency on episodic memory as a potential compensatory cognitive strategy used by individuals with Parkinson's disease during motor learning.

Fostering students' spatial thinking skills holds great promise for improving Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. Recent efforts have focused on the development of classroom interventions to build students' spatial skills, yet these interventions will be implemented by teachers, and their beliefs and perceptions about spatial thinking influence the effectiveness of such interventions. However, our understanding of elementary school teachers' beliefs and perceptions around spatial thinking and STEM is in its infancy. Thus, we created novel measures to survey elementary teachers' anxiety in solving spatial problems, beliefs in the importance of spatial thinking skills for students' academic success, and self‐efficacy in cultivating students' spatial skills during science instruction. All measures exhibited high internal consistency and showed that elementary teachers experience low anxiety when solving spatial problems and feel strongly that their skills can improve with practice. Teachers were able to identify educational problems that rely on spatial problem‐solving and believed that spatial skills are more important for older compared to younger students. Despite reporting high efficacy in their general teaching and science teaching, teachers reported significantly lower efficacy in their capacities to cultivate students' spatial skills during science instruction. Results were fairly consistent across teacher characteristics (e.g., years of experience and teaching role as generalist or specialist) with the exception that only years of teaching science was related to teachers' efficacy in cultivating students' spatial thinking skills during science instruction. Results are discussed within the broader context of teacher beliefs, self‐efficacy, and implications for professional development research.

Based on the neuro-functional association between navigation in the physical and themental space at the level of the hippocampal-entorhinal system, Buzsáki and Moser (2013) have hypothesized aphylogenetic continuity between spatial navigation and declarative memory functions.According to this proposal, mechanisms of episodic and semantic memory would have evolvedfrom mechanisms of self-based and map-based navigation in the physical space,respectively. Using classic versions of path integration and item recognition tasks inhuman subjects, we have recently described a correlation and a predictive relationshipbetween abilities in egocentric navigation and episodic memory. Here we aim at confirmingand extending this association to the dynamic component of sequential updating in thephysical (egocentric navigation) and mental (episodic memory) space, and at investigatingthe relationship of these self-centered abilities with semantic memory. To this aim, wedeveloped three new experimental tasks in which the dynamic component of updatinginformation is particularly emphasized in the spatial, the temporal, and the semanticdomain. The contribution of visual short-term memory to the three tasks was alsocontrolled by including an additional task. The results confirmed the existence of adirect and predictive relationship between self-based spatial navigation and episodicmemory. We also found a significant association between egocentric navigation and semanticmemory, but this relationship was explained by short-term memory abilities and wasmediated by episodic memory functions. Our results support the hypothesis of anevolutionary link between mechanisms that allow spatial navigation in the physical spaceand time travel in the mental space.

Study of the developmental amnesias utilizing a cognitive neuropsychological methodology has highlighted the dissociations that may occur between the development of components of memory. M.M., a new case of developmental amnesia, was identified after screening from the normal population on cognitive and memory measures. Retrospective investigation found that he was of low birthweight. M.M. had impaired semantic memory for knowledge of facts and words. There was impaired episodic memory for words and stories but intact episodic memory for visual designs and features. This forms a double dissociation with Dr S. (Temple, 1992), who had intact verbal but impaired visual episodic memory. M.M. also had impaired autobiographical episodic memory. Nevertheless, learning over repeated trials occurred, consistent with previous theorizing that learning is not simply the effect of recurrent episodic memory. Nor is it the same as establishing semantic memory, since for M.M. semantic memory is also impaired. Within reading, there was an impaired lexico-semantic system, elevated levels of homophone confusion, but intact phonological reading, consistent with surface dyslexia and raising issues about the interrelationship of the semantic system and literacy development. The results are compatible with discrete semi-independent components within memory development, whereby deficits are associated with residual normality, but there may also be an explicit relationship between the semantic memory system and both vocabulary and reading acquisition.

Binge drinking (BD), a harmful pattern of alcohol consumption, is common during adolescence. Young adults with alcohol use disorders exhibit hippocampal alterations and episodic memory deficits. However, it is not known how these difficulties progress in community BD adolescents. Our objective was to analyze the relationship between BD trajectory and verbal episodic memory during the developmental period spanning from adolescence and to early adulthood. An initial sample of 155 male and female first-year university students with no other risk factors were followed over six years. Participants were classified as stable non-BDs, stable BDs and ex-BDs according to the third AUDIT item. At baseline, participants comprised 36 ♂/ 40 ♀ non-BDs (18.58 years), 40 ♂/ 39 ♀ BDs (18.87 years), and at the third follow-up, they comprised 8 ♂/ 8 ♀ stable non-BDs (25.49 years), 2 ♂/ 2 ♀ stable BDs (25.40) and 8 ♂/ 12 ♀ ex-BDs (24.97 years). Episodic memory was assessed four times with the Logical Memory subtest (WMS-III) and the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT). Generalized linear mixed models were applied. The results showed that, relative to non-BDs, stable BDs presented difficulties in immediate and delayed recall in the Logical Memory subtest. These difficulties remained stable over time. The short-term ex-BDs continued to display difficulties in immediate and delayed recall in the Logical Memory subtest, but long-term ex-BDs did not. The effects were not influenced by age of alcohol onset, frequency of cannabis use, tobacco use or psychopathological distress. In conclusion, BD during adolescence and young adulthood is associated with episodic memory deficits. Abandoning the BD pattern may lead to partial recovery. These findings are consistent with the vulnerability of the adolescent hippocampus to the neurotoxic effects of alcohol.

Longitudinal changes in odor identification performance and neuropsychological measures in aging individuals.