Impaired personal trait knowledge, but spared other-person trait knowledge, in an individual with bilateral damage to the medial prefrontal cortex

Abstract

Functional neuroimaging has revealed that in healthy adults retrieval of personal trait knowledge is associated with increased activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Separately, neuropsychology has shown that the self-referential nature of memory can be disrupted in individuals with mPFC lesions. However, it remains unclear whether damage to the mPFC impairs retrieval of personal trait knowledge. Therefore, in this neuropsychological case study we investigated the integrity of personal trait knowledge in J.S., an individual who sustained bilateral damage to the mPFC as a result of an anterior communicating artery aneurysm. We measured both accuracy and consistency of J.S.’s personal trait knowledge as well as his trait knowledge of another, frequently seen person, and compared his performance to a group of healthy adults. Findings revealed that J.S. had severely impaired accuracy and consistency of his personal trait knowledge relative to control participants. In contrast, J.S.’s accuracy and consistency of other-person trait knowledge was intact in comparison to control participants. Moreover, J.S. showed a normal positivity bias in his trait ratings. These results, albeit based on a single case, implicate the mPFC as critical for retrieval of personal trait knowledge. Findings also cast doubt on the likelihood that the mPFC, in particular the ventral mPFC, is necessary for storage and retrieval of trait knowledge of other people. Therefore, this case study adds to a growing body of evidence that mPFC damage can disrupt the link between self and memory.

Self-related processing and future thinking: Distinct contributions of ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the medial temporal lobes

“…Several previous studies have demonstrated a lack of detail in the future simulations of vmPFC patients (Bertossi, Aleo, et al, 2016;Bertossi, Tesini, et al, 2016; but see Kurczek et al, 2015), but the present study is the first to demonstrate that this impairment is exacerbated when simulations are relevant to the self. The lack of a self-benefit in episodic prospection in vmPFC patients is consistent with extensive neuroimaging (Denny et al, 2012;Martinelli, Sperduti, & Piolino, 2013;Murray, Debbane, Fox, Bzdok, & Eickhoff, 2015) and lesion evidence (Fellows & Farah, 2007;Marquine et al, 2016;Philippi, Duff, Denburg, Tranel, & Rudrauf, 2012;Schneider & Koenigs, 2017) for the role of vmPFC in processing information relevant to the self. Notably, whereas previous evidence for a selective impairment in processing information pertaining to the self following vmPFC lesions comes from studies of the self-reference effect in memory (Philippi et al, 2012) and decisions about trait knowledge (Marquine et al, 2016), the current study extends to future thinking the range of domains in which such an impairment is apparent.…”

Becoming the King in the North: identification with fictional characters is associated with greater self–other neural overlap

“…, 2012 ) and in which damage is associated with impaired accessibility of self-referential knowledge ( Philippi et al. , 2012 ; Marquine et al. , 2016 ).…”

“…Moreover, damage to this region has been shown to impair the ability to retrieve self-knowledge ( Philippi et al. , 2012 ) while leaving trait knowledge concerning others intact ( Marquine et al. , 2016 ), suggesting a causal role for this region in accessing self-relevant information.…”

Decoding the neural representation of self and person knowledge with multivariate pattern analysis and data‐driven approaches

“…For instance, patients with damage to the vMPFC in the same location implicated in self-referential processing (e.g., the coordinates from Kelley et al, 2002) completely fail to demonstrate the normal self-referential memory advantage despite otherwise intact memory performance (Philippi et al, 2012). Similarly, in a recent case study, vMPFC damage was associated with reduced insight into the patient's own traits despite intact knowledge of the traits of others (Marquine et al, 2016).…”