Developmental amnesia and its relationship to degree of hippocampal atrophy
- 10 October 2003
- journal article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Vol. 100 (22), 13060-13063
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1233825100
Abstract
Two groups of adolescents, one born preterm and one with a diagnosis of developmental amnesia, were compared with age-matched normal controls on measures of hippocampal volume and memory function. Relative to control values, the preterm group values showed a mean bilateral reduction in hippocampal volume of 8-9% (ranging to 23%), whereas the developmental amnesic group values showed a reduction of 40% (ranging from 27% to 56%). Despite equivalent IQ and immediate memory scores in the two study groups, there were marked differences between them on a wide variety of verbal and visual delayed memory tasks. Consistent with their diagnosis, the developmental amnesic group was impaired relative to both other groups on nearly all delayed memory measures. The preterm group, by contrast, was significantly impaired relative to the controls on only a few memory measures, i.e., route following and prospective memory. We suggest that early hippocampal pathology leads to the disabling memory impairments associated with developmental amnesia when the volume of this structure is reduced below normal by approximately 20-30% on each side. Whether this is a sufficient condition for the disorder or whether abnormality in other brain regions is also necessary remains to be determined.Keywords
This publication has 12 references indexed in Scilit:
- Developmental amnesia: Effect of age at injuryProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2003
- Dissociations in cognitive memory: the syndrome of developmental amnesia.Philosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 2001
- Calculation difficulties in children of very low birthweight: A neural correlateBrain, 2001
- Relationship between magnitude of damage to the hippocampus and impaired recognition memory in monkeysHippocampus, 2001
- MRI‐based evaluation of locus and extent of neurotoxic lesions in monkeysHippocampus, 2001
- Hippocampal volume and everyday memory in children of very low birth weight.Pediatric Research, 2000
- Hierarchical organization of cognitive memoryPhilosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 1997
- Differential Effects of Early Hippocampal Pathology on Episodic and Semantic MemoryScience, 1997
- The spectrum of hippocampal sclerosis: A quantitative magnetic resonance imaging studyAnnals of Neurology, 1997
- Three‐dimensional magnetization‐prepared rapid gradient‐echo imaging (3D MP RAGE)Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 1990