Temporal pole volume is associated with episodic autobiographical memory in healthy older adults

Abstract

Recollection of personal past events differs across the lifespan. Older individuals recall fewer episodic details and convey more semantic information than young. Here we examine how gray matter volumes in temporal lobe regions integral to episodic and semantic memory (hippocampus and temporal poles, respectively) are related to age differences in autobiographical recollection. Gray matter volumes were obtained in healthy young (n = 158) and old (n = 105) adults. The temporal pole was demarcated and hippocampus segmented into anterior and posterior regions to test for volume differences between age groups. The Autobiographical Interview was administered to measure episodic and semantic autobiographical memory. Volume associations with episodic and semantic autobiographical memory were then assessed. Brain volumes were smaller for older adults in the posterior hippocampus. Autobiographical memory was less episodic and more semanticized for older versus younger adults. Older adults also showed positive associations between temporal pole volumes and episodic autobiographical recall; in the young, temporal pole volume was positively associated with performance on standard laboratory measures of semantic memory. Exploratory analyses revealed that age‐related episodic autobiographical memory associations with anterior hippocampal volumes depended on sex. These findings suggest that age differences in brain structures implicated in episodic and semantic memory may portend reorganization of neural circuits to support autobiographical memory in later life.

A smartphone intervention that enhances real-world memory and promotes differentiation of hippocampal activity in older adults

“…As was the case in experiment 1, the benefit of replay on recall of internal details was observed in every participant. This pattern of results was also obtained after adjusting for verbal output ( SI Appendix , section 2.5 and Table S5 ) ( 42 , 43 ). Moreover, replay benefitted all subtypes of Internal details (Internal Event, Time, Place, Perceptual, and Thought/Emotion; SI Appendix , section 2.3, Fig.…”

“…Although the overall number of internal details declined over time, the relative benefit of cued reactivation was preserved: replayed events were recalled with 58.9% more event-specific details than baseline events at delayed testing. This pattern of results was also obtained after adjusting for verbal output by dividing detail count by word count on a trial-by-trial basis ( SI Appendix , section 2.5 and Table S5 ) ( 42 , 43 ). Moreover, repeated HippoCamera replay benefitted all subtypes of internal detail (internal event, time, place, perceptual, and thought/emotion; SI Appendix , section 2.3, Fig.…”

Taking stock of the past: A psychometric evaluation of the Autobiographical Interview

“…The study of trait-level AM has fostered a deeper understanding of how AM and non-mnemonic cognition interact. It has also moved the field toward uncovering how individual variation in brain structure and function shape the way in which humans recall the personal past, at scales ranging from the biophysical properties of axons (Clark et al, 2022) resting-state functional connectivity (Setton et al, 2022a), and temporal lobe volumetry (Setton et al, 2022b). However, several open questions remain, such as the appropriate factor structure for the AI and how it covaries with other related domains such as perception, language, and attention.…”

“…Demographic information for this sample is shown in Table 1. We have recently reported on a subset of these participants with neuroimaging data (Setton et al, 2022a; Setton et al, 2022b).…”

Past and future episodic detail retrieval is reduced among clinically normal older adults at higher genetic risk for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

“…The medial temporal lobe subsystem of the default network, which incorporates the hippocampus and many of its cortical and subcortical connections (including the parahippocampal cortex, retrosplenial cortex, the posterior cingulate cortex, and the inferior parietal lobe), may have an essential role in the sort of cognitive demands required of retrieving and (re)binding vivid, contextualized elements of past events, future events, and atemporal scenes, possibly working collaboratively with the medial prefrontal cortex (Andrews-Hanna & Grilli, 2021; Gaesser et al, 2013; Romero et al, 2019; Sheldon et al, 2019; Summerfield et al, 2010). In fact, recent neuroimaging research using the same Autobiographical Interview scoring approach as the present study has found that individual differences in structural and functional measures of parts of the default network medial temporal lobe subsystem significantly relate to episodic (internal) detail remembering among cognitively normal older adults (Matijevic et al, 2022; Memel et al, 2020; also Setton et al, 2022, in a sex specific pattern).…”