Affiliations: Neuropsychology, CMRR Unit, CHU Bellevue, 42055 Saint
Etienne cx 02, France | Neurology Department, CHU Bellevue, 42055 Saint
Etienne cx 02, France
Abstract: Public events and Flashbulb memories were investigated in 12
non-demented patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and 12 controls. Knowledge
of public events and flashbulbs memories were assessed using a Famous Events
Test (EVE 30). Contributions of semantic, episodic, as well as executive
functioning and anterograde memory were examined. Results primarily showed that
the performances of patients with PD were lower than these of controls in 4
tasks: free recall, specific questions, dating events and date recognition.
They also had difficulties in finding the temporal order of 8 events. In
contrast, the PD group benefited from events recognition themselves to the same
extent as the controls. Secondly, the recall of flashbulb memories (FBM) was
lower in the PD group than in the controls. Finally, correlations appeared in
PD between the detailed recall of the events with the "recall" abilities of
the MATTIS scale, possibly reflect an impairment in rebuilding memories. A
positive correlation is also observed with the initiation score of the MATTIS
(executive component), suggesting that the difficulties of rebuilding can be
related to a dysfunction in accessing information because of a certain degree
of frontal amnesia.
