Univ. Lille, CNRS, CHU Lille, SCALab - Sciences Cognitives Et Sciences Affectives, Lille, France.
Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France.
J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 2021 Mar;43(2):129-143. doi: 10.1080/13803395.2021.1882392. Epub 2021 Mar 8.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is associated with an impairment of autobiographical memories, leading to the production of nonspecific memories. Recent research has demonstrated that odor can serve as a powerful cue for the retrieval of autobiographical memories in AD. Moreover, studies conducted in young adults have showed that odor-evoked autobiographical memories are evoked with more details compared with memories triggered by other sensory modalities. Building on the latter research, we compared specificity, subjective experience, emotional characteristics and retrieval time of autobiographical memories evoked by odor cue, visual cue and verbal cue. To this end, we invited participants with mild AD and control participants to retrieve autobiographical memories after the presentation of an odor, a visual representation of the odorant, or a verbal label of the odorant. Results showed more specificity, higher arousal and more positive memories after odor exposure compared to the visual cue and verbal cue in AD and control participants. In AD participants, autobiographical were retrieved faster after odor-exposure compared to memories evoked by a visual cue and a verbal cue, suggesting the automatic nature of odor-evoked autobiographical memories. Overall, these findings demonstrate that odor is more effective than visual or verbal cues for autobiographical retrieval in AD.
阿尔茨海默病（AD）与自传体记忆损伤有关，导致产生非特异性记忆。最近的研究表明，气味可以作为 AD 患者检索自传体记忆的有力线索。此外，在年轻人中进行的研究表明，与其他感觉模态触发的记忆相比，气味诱发的自传体记忆会唤起更多细节。基于后者的研究，我们比较了气味线索、视觉线索和言语线索诱发的自传体记忆的特异性、主观体验、情绪特征和检索时间。为此，我们邀请了轻度 AD 患者和对照组参与者在呈现气味、气味的视觉表示或气味的言语标签后，检索自传体记忆。结果表明，与 AD 患者和对照组的视觉线索和言语线索相比，气味暴露后记忆的特异性更高、唤醒度更高、记忆更积极。在 AD 患者中，与视觉线索和言语线索诱发的记忆相比，气味暴露后自传体记忆的检索速度更快，这表明气味诱发的自传体记忆具有自动性质。总的来说，这些发现表明，与视觉或言语线索相比，气味在 AD 患者的自传体检索中更有效。
