Selective Deficit of Autobiographical Incident Memory in Subjects with Bipolar Disorder

Abstract

Background: Previous studies have suggested that episodic memory impairment is one of the trait-like markers of bipolar disorder (BD), and is also associated with the course of the illness. Autobiographical memory (AM) is a special type of episodic memory, and disruption of AM causes severe psychosocial dysfunctions in patients with various neuropsychiatric disorders. However, little is known about possible deficits in AM in BD. This study investigated AM performance of BD patients and the effect of aging on their memory function. Sampling and Methods: We assessed AM of particular incidents (incident AM) and AM of personal facts (semantic AM), focusing on 4 time periods in 31 BD patients and 38 normal controls. Each group was divided into younger and older subgroups. General episodic memory functioning was also assessed by a word list learning task. Results: While there were no impairments in semantic AM throughout the lifetime in either group, both the younger and older BD groups exhibited impairments in incident AM compared to controls, and this effect was more profound in the recent period in the older BD group. Performance on the word list learning test was not impaired in either subgroup of BD patients, indicating that general episodic memory function was preserved. Conclusions: We are the first group to report relatively selective AM impairments in BD, which have severer effects upon recent incident memory, and seemed to worsen with aging and/or clinical course.

Patterns of Autobiographical Memory in Bipolar Disorder Examined by Psychometric and Functional Neuroimaging Methods

“…Therefore, patients seem to remember a smaller set of specific events from their past but remember these events more frequently in their everyday lives. These findings are consistent with reports of overgeneral recall (Mansell and Lam, 2004;Mowlds et al, 2010;Scott et al, 2000;Shimizu et al, 2009;Tzemou and Birchwood, 2007). Considering the association among the number of specific events, the frequency of recall, and the scores of the BDI II (Bech, 1979), this effect seems to be related to symptom severity, even outside an acute episode.…”

“…T he study of autobiographical memory in bipolar disorder (BD) has only started recently (Harvey et al, 2004;Mansell and Lam, 2004;Mowlds et al, 2010;Scott et al, 2000;Shimizu et al, 2009;Tzemou and Birchwood, 2007) but is of considerable clinical interest because of the increasing recognition of the role of life events in shaping the development of psychotic disorders (Docherty et al, 2008;Myin-Germeys et al, 2001, 2003.…”

“…Periods of life contain broad knowledge about individual and personal experience (e.g., school life, working life) or periods defined by a particular personal relationship. These memories can be used to gain access to more specific knowledge (general events; e.g., ''every time I got an A, my teacher was happy with me'') (Conway, 2001;Shimizu et al, 2009). The retrieval of general events provides cues for the retrieval of specific events (e.g., an A grade in math in the second class of primary school) (Harvey et al, 2004;Tulving, 2002;Williams and Broadbent, 1986).…”

Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments (CANMAT) and International Society for Bipolar Disorders (ISBD) collaborative update of CANMAT guidelines for the management of patients with bipolar disorder: update 2013

“…Older adults with BD have been shown to have greater levels of cognitive dysfunction than age-matched mentally healthy control subjects (272)(273)(274)(275). Among older patients with BD, a greater burden from vascular risk factors has been associated with poorer outcomes on some cognitive measures (276,277).…”

The lesson for us in a bipolar disorder patient comorbid with dissociative amnesia

“…Dissociative disorders, including DA, are generally considered psychogenic responses (Brand et al, 2012). Besides, bipolar disorder had been reported with higher incidences of autobiographical memory impairments which are also a characteristic of DA, suggesting the correlation between bipolar disorder and DA (Shimizu et al, 2009). However, with the functional brain imaging developing, some brain abnormality has been suggested to relate to DA (Brand et al, 2009(Brand et al, , 2012.…”