Highlights
- •Simulation of past and future events is impaired in multiple sclerosis patients.
- •The deficit affects similarly the two temporal directions.
- •A frontal lobe dysfunction hypothesis is suggested.
- •Results provide new insights into cognitive functioning in multiple sclerosis.
Abstract
The aims of the present study were (i) to explore autobiographical memory and episodic
future thought in multiple sclerosis (MS), using Levine's Autobiographical Interview;
(ii) to investigate the influence of the Interview's high retrieval support condition
(the specific probe phase) on MS patients' past and future simulations and (iii) to
obtain the patients' estimations of their own difficulties, during the test, and in
everyday life.
To that end, we examined 39 non-depressed relapsing–remitting MS patients and 34 healthy
subjects matched for gender, age and education level. The 73 participants underwent
an adapted version of the Autobiographical Interview in two conditions: remembering
and imagining personal events. The group of patients also underwent an extended neuropsychological
baseline, including particularly, anterograde memory and executive functions.
The results showed that the MS patients' scores on the baseline were mildly or not
impaired. On the contrary, the Autobiographical Interview measure, i.e., the mean
number of internal details, for each of the two phases of the test – free recall and
specific probe – was significantly lower in simulated past and future events in comparison
with the healthy controls. Within each group, autobiographical memory performance
was superior to episodic future thought performance. A strong positive correlation
was observed between past and future mental simulation scores in both groups.
In conclusion, our results showed, for the first time, the co-occurrence of deficit
of remembering the past and imagining the future in MS patients. They also showed
more difficulty in imagining future events than remembering past events for both patients
and normal controls. MS being a neurological condition very frequent in the young
adult population, the clinical considerations of our study might be of interest. Indeed,
they give rise to new insights on MS patients' daily life difficulties related to
impaired mental simulation of personal events despite general abilities, including
anterograde memory, only mildly or not impaired.
Abbreviations:
AI (Autobiographical Interview), AM (autobiographical memory), EDSS (Expanded Disability Status Scale), EFT (episodic future thought), MS (multiple sclerosis)Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: July 10, 2014
Accepted:
July 2,
2014
Received in revised form:
June 30,
2014
Received:
March 22,
2014
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 Elsevier B.V. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
