Strikwerda-Brown Cherie, Shaw Siobhán R, Hodges John R, Piguet Olivier, Irish Muireann
The University of Sydney, Brain and Mind Centre, Camperdown, Australia.
The University of Sydney, School of Psychology, Camperdown, Australia.
Mem Cognit. 2022 Apr;50(3):617-629. doi: 10.3758/s13421-021-01222-w. Epub 2021 Aug 16.
While traditional analyses of autobiographical construction tend to focus on the 'internal' or episodic details of the narrative, contemporary studies employing fine-grained scoring measures reveal the 'external' component to contain important information relevant to the individual's life story. Here, we used the recently developed NExt scoring protocol to explore profiles of external details generated by patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) (n = 11) and semantic dementia (SD) (n = 13) on a future thinking task. Overall, distinct NExt profiles were observed for future events in AD and SD. Specifically, AD patients provided significantly more Specific Episode external details compared with Controls. Using voxel-based morphometry, these increased external details within future narratives related to grey matter intensity in medial and lateral frontal regions in AD. By contrast, SD patients displayed an elevation of Specific Episode, Extended Episode, and General Semantic details during future simulation relative to Controls, which related to grey matter intensity of medial and lateral parietal regions. Our findings suggest that the compensatory external details generated during future simulation comprise an array of episodic and semantic details that vary in terms of specificity and self-relevance, which may be differentially affected depending on the locus of underlying neuropathology in dementia. Adopting a fine-grained approach to external details helps to characterise the interplay between episodic and semantic content during future stimulation and suggests potentially differential vulnerability and preservation of distinct components of the constructed narrative in clinical disorders.
虽然传统的自传构建分析往往侧重于叙事的“内部”或情节细节，但采用细粒度评分措施的当代研究表明，“外部”成分包含与个人生活故事相关的重要信息。在此，我们使用最近开发的NExt评分协议，来探究阿尔茨海默病（AD）患者（n = 11）和语义性痴呆（SD）患者（n = 13）在未来思维任务中生成的外部细节概况。总体而言，在AD和SD患者中观察到了未来事件的不同NExt概况。具体而言，与对照组相比，AD患者提供了显著更多的特定情节外部细节。使用基于体素的形态测量法，这些在未来叙事中增加的外部细节与AD患者内侧和外侧额叶区域的灰质强度有关。相比之下，SD患者在未来模拟过程中相对于对照组，特定情节、扩展情节和一般语义细节有所增加，这与内侧和外侧顶叶区域的灰质强度有关。我们的研究结果表明，在未来模拟过程中产生的补偿性外部细节包括一系列情节性和语义性细节，这些细节在特异性和自我相关性方面存在差异，这可能会因痴呆潜在神经病理学的部位不同而受到不同影响。采用细粒度方法处理外部细节有助于描述未来刺激过程中情节性和语义性内容之间的相互作用，并表明在临床疾病中，构建叙事的不同成分可能存在不同的易损性和保存情况。
