Piccardi Laura, Verde Paola, Bianchini Filippo, Morgagni Fabio, Guariglia Cecilia, Strollo Felice, Tomao Enrico
Centro Sperimentale Volo - Reparto Medicina Aeronautica e Spaziale, Aeroporto "M, de Bernardi" Pratica di Mare Pomezia, Rome, Italy.
BMC Res Notes. 2014 Aug 13;7:524. doi: 10.1186/1756-0500-7-524.
It is well known that cognitive and emotional changes occur during pregnancy, but little is known about their magnitude or their time of occurrence and recovery. During pregnancy memory is one of the most impaired cognitive functions. Although long-term aspects of memory have been investigated, other aspects of memory have not yet been explored (i.e., navigational memory and reaching memory).
Here we describe the changes in reaching and walking memory that occurred during pregnancy and one year after delivery in an Italian female military pilot (Case 1) with high spatial ability. In memory tests she showed a classical dissociation between performance in reaching and walking distance, which indicated a failure of working memory, learning, and storage in reaching space. This suggests that her expertise served as a protective factor mitigating her low walking memory performance, and saving the topographical component.We compared her performance with that of two non-pregnant control groups (i.e., women pilots and non-pilots) and found that Case 1's reaching memory performance was significantly worse than that of the control groups. Even one year postpartum, Case 1's performance was not yet the same as that of the other pilots.
These findings contribute to our knowledge of the specific, as yet unexplored, aspects of memory deficits in women pilots during pregnancy and postpartum and suggest the need for better neuropsychological assessment before these women return to work in operational environments.
众所周知，孕期会出现认知和情绪变化，但对于这些变化的程度、发生时间及恢复情况却知之甚少。孕期记忆是受损最为严重的认知功能之一。尽管已对记忆的长期方面进行了研究，但记忆的其他方面（如导航记忆和伸手记忆）尚未得到探索。
在此，我们描述了一名具有较高空间能力的意大利女性军事飞行员（病例1）在孕期及产后一年期间伸手记忆和行走记忆的变化。在记忆测试中，她在伸手距离和行走距离的表现上呈现出典型的分离，这表明在伸手空间方面工作记忆、学习和存储存在缺陷。这表明她的专业技能起到了保护作用，减轻了其行走记忆表现不佳的影响，并保留了地形成分。我们将她的表现与两个非孕期对照组（即女飞行员和非飞行员）进行了比较，发现病例1的伸手记忆表现明显差于对照组。即使在产后一年，病例1的表现仍与其他飞行员不同。
这些发现有助于我们了解女飞行员在孕期和产后记忆缺陷中尚未被探索的具体方面，并表明在这些女性返回作战环境工作之前，需要进行更好的神经心理学评估。
