Accelerated long-term forgetting in children with temporal lobe epilepsy: A timescale investigation of material specificity and executive skills

• Published in: Epilepsy & behavior Vol. 129; p. 108623
• Main Authors: Joplin, Samantha, Gascoigne, Michael, Barton, Belinda, Webster, Richard, Gill, Deepak, Lawson, John A., Mandalis, Anna, Sabaz, Mark, McLean, Samantha, Gonzalez, Linda, Smith, Mary-Lou, Lah, Suncica
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.04.2022
• Subjects: Accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF); Child; Children; Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe - complications; Executive dysfunction; Executive function; Humans; Memory Disorders - complications; Memory Disorders - etiology; Memory, Long-Term - physiology; Memory, Short-Term; Mental Recall - physiology; Neuropsychological Tests; Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE); Visual memory; Executive dysfunction; Executive function; Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE); Children; Visual memory; Accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF)
• ISSN: 1525-5050; 1525-5069
• DOI: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2022.108623

•Children with epilepsy showed visual accelerated long-term forgetting on a novel task: Scene Memory.•Visual accelerated long-term forgetting was found at 2 weeks, although not at 1 day.•Accelerated long-term forgetting related to executive dysfunction in children with epilepsy.•These findings extend our theoretical and clinical understanding of memory formation in children. Recently, children with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) were found to be at risk of accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF). In this study, we examined the temporal trajectory of ALF, while exploring the relationship between ALF, executive skills, and epilepsy variables. Fifty-one children, (23 with TLE and 28 typically developing) completed a battery of neuropsychological tests of verbal and visual memory, executive skills, and two experimental memory tasks (verbal and visual) involving recall after short (30-min) and extended (1-day and 2-week) delays. Side of seizure focus and hippocampal integrity were considered. On the visual task (Scene Memory), children with TLE performed comparably to typically developing children following a 30-min and 1-day delay, although worse than typically developing children at 2 weeks: ALF was observed in children with right TLE focus. The two groups did not differ on the experimental verbal memory task. Children with TLE also had worse performance than typically developing children on standardized verbal memory test and on tests of executive skills (i.e., verbal generativity, inhibition, working memory, complex attention). Only complex attention was associated with visual ALF. ALF was present for visuo-spatial materials in children with TLE at two weeks, and children with right TLE were most susceptible. A relationship was identified between complex attention and long-term forgetting. The findings extend our understanding of difficulties in long-term memory formation experienced by children with TLE.