School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Neurology Department, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, NSW 2050, Australia.
Epilepsy Behav. 2020 Mar;104(Pt A):106920. doi: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2020.106920. Epub 2020 Mar 5.
Accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF) is a recently discovered memory disorder characterized by intact acquisition and retention over short delays, followed by abnormally fast rates of forgetting. Accelerated long-term forgetting has been repeatedly found in children, but not in adults, with genetic generalized epilepsy (GGE). It is possible that this discrepancy is due to a difference in paradigms used in these studies. The current study aimed to determine whether adults with GGE displayed ALF using two paradigms, one that required complete learning and another one that did not. In addition, we explored the relationships with everyday memory difficulties, working memory, mood, and epilepsy variables. Fourteen adults with GGE were compared with 16 healthy controls on two verbal memory tests: a modified version of the California Verbal Learning Test learned to a criterion of 100% (complete learning) and Logical Memory from the Wechsler Memory Scale (Fourth Edition) presented only once (incomplete learning). Recall was tested at 2 min, 30 min, and 1 week, and recognition at 1 week only. Working memory, everyday memory, and mood were also assessed. We found no evidence of ALF on either of the two verbal memory paradigms on recall or recognition tests although patients displayed significantly poorer working memory. Moreover, patients with GGE reported significantly more memory difficulties in everyday life, and these were associated with greater mood disturbances but not with memory tests scores. Greater number of antiepileptic drugs and epilepsy severity also related to memory scores on some tests. Our study suggests that a difference in paradigms used to investigate ALF in children and adults with GGE is unlikely to explain the differences in findings. The study tentatively raises a hypothesis that developmental factors may play a role in ALF in patients with GGE; children with GGE may grow out of ALF. Nevertheless, this hypothesis would need to be tested in a longitudinal study that would follow patients from childhood to early adulthood.
加速长期遗忘（ALF）是一种最近发现的记忆障碍，其特征是在短时间延迟内获得和保留完整，随后遗忘速度异常快。加速长期遗忘已在儿童中反复发现，但在遗传性全身性癫痫（GGE）的成人中未发现。这种差异可能是由于这些研究中使用的范式不同。本研究旨在确定 GGE 成人是否使用两种范式表现出 ALF，一种需要完全学习，另一种不需要。此外，我们还探讨了与日常记忆困难、工作记忆、情绪和癫痫变量的关系。将 14 名 GGE 成人与 16 名健康对照者在两项言语记忆测试上进行比较：加利福尼亚言语学习测试的修改版（学习至 100%的标准）和韦氏记忆量表第四版的逻辑记忆（一次呈现）（不完全学习）。在 2 分钟、30 分钟和 1 周时进行回忆测试，仅在 1 周时进行识别测试。还评估了工作记忆、日常记忆和情绪。我们在回忆或识别测试上的两种言语记忆范式上均未发现 ALF 的证据，尽管患者的工作记忆明显较差。此外，GGE 患者在日常生活中报告了明显更多的记忆困难，这些与更大的情绪障碍相关，但与记忆测试分数无关。抗癫痫药物的数量越多，癫痫的严重程度越高，也与某些测试的记忆分数相关。我们的研究表明，用于研究 GGE 儿童和成人 ALF 的范式差异不太可能解释发现结果的差异。该研究初步提出了一个假设，即发育因素可能在 GGE 患者的 ALF 中起作用；患有 GGE 的儿童可能会摆脱 ALF。然而，这一假设需要在一项纵向研究中进行测试，该研究将从儿童期到成年早期跟踪患者。
