Prospective and episodic memory in relation to hippocampal volume in adults with spina bifida myelomeningocele.

Abstract

The present study examined prospective and episodic memory in relation to age, functional independence, and hippocampal volume in younger to middle-aged adults with spina bifida myelomeningocele (SBM) and typically developing (TD) adults. Prospective and episodic memory, as well as hippocampal volume, were reduced in adults with SBM relative to TD adults. Neither memory performance nor hippocampal volume showed greater decrements in older adults. Lower hippocampal volume was associated with reduced prospective memory in adults with SBM, and this relation was specific to the hippocampus and not to a contrast structure, the amygdala. Prospective memory mediated the relation between hippocampal volume and functional independence in adults with SBM. The results add to emerging evidence for reduced memory function in adults with SBM, and provide quantitative evidence for compromised hippocampal macrostructure as a neural correlate of reduced memory in this population.

Cognitive control and associated neural correlates in adults with spina bifida myelomeningocele.

“…As expected from our previous findings, the adults with SBM exhibited parallel deterioration of cognitive control abilities to that in normal aging (Dennis et al, 2015; Treble-Barna et al, 2015). With the exception of performance accuracy during the WMST, none of the group by age interactions significantly related to cognitive performance.…”

“…This has lead to the formulation of a modal profile of cognitive processing in SBM that includes relatively spared associative processing abilities, such as the activation and categorization of information related to stimuli that is based on formed associations, and relatively disrupted assembled processing or integration of information, particularly to exogenous stimuli. Although the conceptualization of this profile is predominantly based on studies of younger individuals and youth, the two known studies of adults with SBM supported assembled processing deficits of impaired prospective and verbal episodic memory and response (processing) speed (Dennis et al, 2015; Treble-Barna et al, 2015). In the current study, difficulty responding to learned associations of visually presented stimuli supported deficient capacity for maintaining information of exogenous stimuli in the adults with SBM.…”

Spina bifida

“…About a third to half of children with MMC have hypogenesis (under-development) of the corpus callosum involving either the splenium and posterior body or the rostrum 42. These anomalies suggest that the disruption of neural migration associated with MMC is prolonged into the second trimester, since the corpus callosum develops from 8-20 weeks prenatally 48. Quantitative studies of the corpus callosum show marked volume and integrity differences, especially posteriorly in cases with hypogenesis or severe hypoplasia 49.…”

Neurobehavioral outcomes in patients with myelomeningocele

“…These specific learning and memory functions appear to be differentially impacted in MMC, such that individu-als with MMC often have strengths in rote memorization and show fairly typical implicit memory 23, 75 but have more difficulty with explicit and prospective memory, which is thought to be due to the disrupted development of subcortical structures and associated networks. 22,71,75 Individuals with MMC also struggle to use previously learned information flexibly or in novel ways because of their executive function difficulties. Furthermore, these patients show difficulties with reconstructive memory as opposed to recognition or repetition.…”