Associative memory impairment in acute stress disorder: Characteristics and time course

Guez, Jonathan; Cohen, Jonathan; Naveh–Benjamin, Moshe; Shiber, Asher; Yankovsky, Yan; Saar, Rotem; Shalev, Hadar

doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2012.12.013

Cited by 20 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…The majority of neuroimaging studies in PTSD report brain alterations in structures involved in binding components of events (e.g. the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus and parahippocampus; see meta-analysis by Karl et al, [ 37 ]), and indeed previous studies in these populations have shown increased bias towards false-memories [ 38 ], [ 39 ], [ 40 ], [ 10 ], [ 11 ], [ 13 ], and more specifically higher rates of false recognition in associative memory tasks (see [ 10 ], [ 11 ], [ 13 ]). Since increased susceptibility to conditioning was also reported in PTSD [ 41 ] and it is known that one common tendency of PTSD patients is overgeneralization from traumatic cues to unrelated neutral ones [ 42 ], resultant in binding together negative and neutral stimuli, and erroneous associations between neutral stimuli it is therefore hypothesized that memory fragmentation in populations with disorders associated with traumatic stress may be related to an altered binding process.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To probe for items and associative memory we employed a modified procedure of our previously used item-association paradigm (see [ 10 ], [ 11 ], [ 13 ]). All participants were given standardized instructions prior to the beginning of the memory paradigm.…”

Section: Experiments Imentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent studies conducted on populations with disorders associated with traumatic stress (see [ 10 ], [ 11 ], [ 13 ]) raised the hypothesis that associative memory impairments occur because of impaired associative binding process, presumably due to impaired recollection, i.e. when an encoded unit is retrieved with partial/without its contextual information [ 12 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Focusing on the distinction between familiarity and recollection under arousing conditions in healthy participants may contribute to the understanding of memory impairments in populations with disorders associated with traumatic stress [ 22 ], [ 26 ], [ 27 ], and serve as a potential route to uncover the mechanisms underlying memory fragmentation in clinical populations [ 10 ], [ 11 ], [ 13 ]. Thus, in the current study we aimed to expand the understanding of the effect of acute NEA on recollection, by probing associative memory performance in healthy participants using an item-association memory paradigm, which allows distinguishing between items recognition (which is familiarity-based) and associative recognition (which is fundamentally based on recollection processes).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Negative Emotional Arousal Impairs Associative Memory Performance for Emotionally Neutral Content in Healthy Participants

et al. 2015

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The effect of emotional arousal on memory presents a complex pattern with previous studies reporting conflicting results of both improved and reduced memory performance following arousal manipulations. In this study we further tested the effect of negative emotional arousal (NEA) on individual-item recognition and associative recognition of neutral stimuli in healthy participants, and hypothesized that NEA will particularly impair associative memory performance. The current study consists of two experiments; in both, participants studied a list of word-pairs and were then tested for items (items recognition test), and for associations (associative recognition test). In the first experiment, the arousal manipulation was induced by flashing emotionally-negative or neutral pictures between study-pairs while in the second experiment arousal was induced by presenting emotionally-negative or neutral pictures between lists. The results of the two experiments converged and supported an associative memory deficit observed under NEA conditions. We suggest that NEA is associated with an altered ability to bind one stimulus to another as a result of impaired recollection, resulting in poorer associative memory performance. The current study findings may contribute to the understanding of the mechanism underlying memory impairments reported in disorders associated with traumatic stress.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Experiments Imentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Negative Emotional Arousal Impairs Associative Memory Performance for Emotionally Neutral Content in Healthy Participants

et al. 2015

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“…To probe for memory performance, we employed a previously used item-association memory paradigm (see [ 9 , 37 – 38 ]) that included two types of memory tasks (words and pictures) with a similar construct (see Fig 1 ). All participants were given standardized instructions prior to the beginning of the memory paradigm.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Breakdown of Inter-Hemispheric Connectivity Is Associated with Posttraumatic Symptomatology and Memory Impairment

et al. 2016

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Altered brain anatomy in specific gray-matter regions has been shown in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Recently, white-matter tracts have become a focus of research in PTSD. The corpus callosum (CC) is the principal white-matter fiber bundle, crucial in relaying sensory, motor and cognitive information between hemispheres. Alterations in CC fibers have been reported in PTSD and might be assumed to underlie substantial behavioral and cognitive sequelae; however most diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies in adult-onset PTSD failed to address the clinical correlates between imaging and PTSD symptoms severity, behavioral manifestation and cognitive functions. In the current study we examined (a) to what extent microstructural integrity of the CC is associated with memory performance and (b) whether imaging and cognitive parameters are associated with PTSD symptom severity. DTI data were obtained and fractional anisotropy (FA) values were computed for 16 patients and 14 controls. PTSD symptom severity was assessed by employing the clinician administered PTSD scale (CAPS) and memory was tested using a task probing item and associative memory for words and pictures. Significant correlations were found between PTSD symptoms severity, memory accuracy and reaction-time to CC FA values in the PTSD group. This study demonstrates meaningful clinical and cognitive correlates of microstructural connectivity. These results have implications for diagnostic tools and future studies aimed at identifying individuals at risk for PTSD.

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Reduced Corpus‐Callosum Volume in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Highlights the Importance of Interhemispheric Connectivity for Associative Memory

Saar‐Ashkenazy

Cohen

Guez

et al. 2014

Journal of Traumatic Stress

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Memory deficits are a common complaint of patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Despite vivid trauma-related memory, previous studies report memory impairment for nontrauma-related stimuli when compared to controls, specifically in associative memory (Guez et al., 2011). Healthy individuals show hemispheric memory asymmetry with left-prefrontal lateralization of encoding and right-prefrontal lateralization of episodic retrieval, suggesting a role for interhemispheric communication in memory-related tasks (Gazzaniga, ; Ringo, Doty, Demeter, & Simard, ). Because brain magnetic resonance imaging (bMRI) studies in PTSD patients report volume changes in various regions, including white matter and corpus callosum (CC), we aimed to test the relationship between memory deficits and CC volume in PTSD patients. We probed for specific alterations in associative memory in PTSD and measured the volume of subportions within the CC employing bMRI. Our main finding was a reduction in CC white-matter volume in PTSD patients, as compared to controls, t(35) = -2.7, p = .010, that was correlated with lower associative performance (r = .76, p = .003). We propose that CC volume reduction is a substrate for the associative memory deficits found in PTSD.

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Associative memory impairment in acute stress disorder: Characteristics and time course

Cited by 20 publications

References 23 publications

Negative Emotional Arousal Impairs Associative Memory Performance for Emotionally Neutral Content in Healthy Participants

Negative Emotional Arousal Impairs Associative Memory Performance for Emotionally Neutral Content in Healthy Participants

Breakdown of Inter-Hemispheric Connectivity Is Associated with Posttraumatic Symptomatology and Memory Impairment

Reduced Corpus‐Callosum Volume in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Highlights the Importance of Interhemispheric Connectivity for Associative Memory

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