Accelerated long-term forgetting in children with genetic generalized epilepsy: The temporal trajectory and contribution of executive skills

• Published in: Epilepsy & behavior Vol. 113; p. 107471
• Main Authors: Joplin, Samantha, Webster, Richard, Gill, Deepak, Barton, Belinda, Lawson, John A., Mandalis, Anna, Sabaz, Mark, Gascoigne, Michael, Lah, Suncica
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.12.2020
• Subjects: Accelerated forgetting; Child; Epilepsy, Generalized; Genetic generalized epilepsy; Humans; Idiopathic; Memory; Memory Disorders; Memory, Long-Term; Mental Recall; Neuropsychological Tests; Genetic generalized epilepsy; Accelerated forgetting; Memory; Idiopathic
• ISSN: 1525-5050; 1525-5069
• DOI: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2020.107471

Long-term memory, which is critical for social and vocational functioning, is impaired in children with genetic generalized epilepsy (GGE). In this study, we examined the relationship between the temporal pattern of long-term forgetting for visual and verbal materials and executive skills in children with GGE. Thirty-two children, 17 with GGE and 25 typically developing age-matched controls completed standardized tests of short-term memory (recall after a 30-minute delay), executive skills, and experimental long-term memory tasks (one verbal and one visual) involving recall after one short (30-minute), and two long (1-day, 2-week) delays. On the long-term visual memory task, children with GGE performed comparably with typically developing children at a 30-minute delay (p = .298), although obtained lower object placement accuracy score, at 1 day (p = .039) and at 2 weeks (p = .022) relative to typically developing children. On the verbal task, the between-group difference was not significant at any delay. In children with GGE, poorer object placement accuracy at two weeks correlated with lower visuospatial short-term memory (r = −0.624, p = .005) and verbal working memory (r = −0.448, p = .041). This study provided several novel findings. For the first time, accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF) was found in long-term visual memory in children with GGE, despite comparable learning and recall at 30 min. Study results indicated that deficits in long-term visual memory are present after one day, increase over time, and may relate to reduced executive skills. Our findings can be used to inform our understanding of the temporal trajectory of ALF and contribution of executive skills. •Children with epilepsy had deficits in long-term visual memory on a novel task: Scene Memory.•Long-term visual memory deficits were found at 1-day and 2-weeks, although not 30 minutes.•Unexpectedly, no deficits were found for verbal materials on a list-learning task.•Long-term visual memory deficits related executive dysfunction in children with epilepsy.•These findings extend our theoretical and clinical understanding of memory formation in children