El Haj Mohamad, Kapogiannis Dimitrios, Boutoleau-Bretonnière Claire
Clinical Gerontology Department, CHU Nantes, Nantes, France.
Laboratory of Clinical Investigation, National Institute on Aging, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
J Neuropsychol. 2025 Jun;19(2):247-255. doi: 10.1111/jnp.12404. Epub 2024 Dec 10.
Autobiographical memory is diminished in patients with behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), and research has focused on the hampered ability of patients to retrieve specific memories. In this study, we implemented a methodology seeking to provide a qualitative analysis of autobiographical specificity. We invited patients with bvFTD and control participants to retrieve autobiographical memories and we distinguished between specific, categoric, extended and semantic autobiographical retrieval. The analysis demonstrated that patients with bvFTD produced more categoric than specific, extended or semantic memories. Thus, despite the decreased ability to retrieve specific memories, an increased ability to produce categoric memories can be observed in patients with bvFTD. These results support a positive view according to which autobiographical retrieval in bvFTD is not solely characterized by over-generality, but also by increased retrieval of categoric memories. Categoric memories, albeit lacking uniqueness, nevertheless, involve retrieval of similar or related events upon which patients may draw knowledge related to their self-image and life story.
行为变异型额颞叶痴呆（bvFTD）患者的自传体记忆会减退，并且研究聚焦于患者在检索特定记忆方面的能力受阻。在本研究中，我们采用了一种旨在对自传体特异性进行定性分析的方法。我们邀请了bvFTD患者和对照参与者来检索自传体记忆，并且我们区分了特定、分类、扩展和语义自传体检索。分析表明，bvFTD患者产生的分类记忆比特定、扩展或语义记忆更多。因此，尽管检索特定记忆的能力下降，但在bvFTD患者中可以观察到产生分类记忆的能力增强。这些结果支持了一种积极的观点，即bvFTD中的自传体检索不仅以过度泛化为特征，还以分类记忆检索增加为特征。分类记忆虽然缺乏独特性，但仍然涉及对相似或相关事件的检索，患者可以从中获取与自我形象和人生故事相关的知识。
