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Neuropsychologia

Volume 72, June 2015, Pages 105-118
Neuropsychologia

Severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM) in healthy adults:
A new mnemonic syndrome

Author links open overlay panelDaniela J.Palombo^a^b^1ClaudeAlain^a^b
HedvigSoderlund^cWayneKhuu^a^bBrianLevine^a^b^d
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.04.012Get rights and
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Highlights

*

    Profoundly impaired autobiographical re-experiencing in healthy
    adults.

*

    Deficit specific to episodic (especially visual), rather than
    semantic processes.

*

    Impaired activation of midline structures during autobiographical
    memory retrieval.

*

    Absence of late positive component with intact recognition.

*

    Performance on everyday mnemonic tasks mediated by non-episodic
    processes.

Abstract

Recollection of previously experienced events is a key element of
human memory that entails recovery of spatial, perceptual, and mental
state details. While deficits in this capacity in association with
brain disease have serious functional consequences, little is known
about individual differences in autobiographical memory (AM) in
healthy individuals. Recently, healthy adults with highly superior
autobiographical capacities have been identified (e.g., LePort, A.K.,
Mattfeld, A.T., Dickinson-Anson, H., Fallon, J.H., Stark, C.E.,
Kruggel, F., McGaugh, J.L., 2012. Behavioral and neuroanatomical
investigation of Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM).
Neurobiol. Learn. Mem. 98(1), 78-92. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2012.05.002).
Here we report data from three healthy, high functioning adults with
the reverse pattern: lifelong severely deficient autobiographical
memory (SDAM) with otherwise preserved cognitive function. Their
self-reported selective inability to vividly recollect personally
experienced events from a first-person perspective was corroborated
by absence of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and
event-related potential (ERP) biomarkers associated with naturalistic
and laboratory episodic recollection, as well as by behavioral
evidence of impaired episodic retrieval, particularly for visual
information. Yet learning and memory were otherwise intact, as long
as these tasks could be accomplished by non-episodic processes. Thus
these individuals function normally in day-to-day life, even though
their past is experienced in the absence of recollection.

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Keywords

Episodic memory
Autobiographical memory
Hippocampus
Case study
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Cited by (0)

^1

    Daniela J. Palombo is now at the VA Boston Healthcare System,
    Jamaica Plain and the Department of Psychiatry, Boston University
    School of Medicine.

Copyright (c) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

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