Isingrini M, Taconnat L
UMR CNRS 6234 CeRCA, Université François Rabelais, 3 Rue des Tanneurs, 37000 Tours, France.
Rev Neurol (Paris). 2008 May;164 Suppl 3:S91-5. doi: 10.1016/S0035-3787(08)73297-1.
Episodic memory is commonly defined as the kind of memory that renders possible conscious recollection of personal happenings and events from one's personal past. Although it is classically assumed that episodic memory is subserved by a distinct neurocognitive system including mediotemporal cortex and hippocampus, recent evidence also supports the idea of a close relationship between episodic memory and frontal cortex. This view assumes that the frontal cortex plays a critical supervisory role in empowering encoding and retrieval episodic memory operations. In recent years, this view had significantly influenced research in the field of normal memory aging. Indeed, different data have highlighted that age-related cognitive differences, most particularly age-related memory differences, might be explained by the decline of executive-frontal functioning that accompanies aging. In this article, we provide studies on aging and episodic memory that, in support of the executive hypothesis of aging episodic memory, have provided evidence that age-related differences in strategies implemented at encoding and retrieval in this type of memory are mediated by the executive functioning difficulties of older adults.
情景记忆通常被定义为一种能够使人有意识地回忆起个人过去的经历和事件的记忆。虽然传统上认为情景记忆由一个独特的神经认知系统支持，包括内侧颞叶皮层和海马体，但最近的证据也支持情景记忆与额叶皮层之间存在密切关系的观点。这种观点认为，额叶皮层在增强情景记忆的编码和提取操作中起着关键的监督作用。近年来，这一观点对正常记忆老化领域的研究产生了重大影响。事实上，不同的数据表明，与年龄相关的认知差异，尤其是与年龄相关的记忆差异，可能可以用衰老过程中执行性额叶功能的衰退来解释。在本文中，我们提供了关于衰老和情景记忆的研究，这些研究支持情景记忆老化的执行假说，提供了证据表明，老年人在这种记忆的编码和提取过程中所采用策略的与年龄相关的差异是由其执行功能困难所介导的。
