INTRODUÇÃO: A memória autobiográfica é um tipo de memória episódica, que abrange os aspectos perceptuais, afetivos e espaço-temporais de um evento. Tais aspectos são organizados em representações que compõem uma história pessoal, sendo portanto fundamentais para a formação da identidade. Esse tipo de lembrança é uma construção transitória e dinâmica gerada a partir de uma base de conhecimento subjacente e esta base é armazenada em diferentes níveis de especificidade de detalhes. Por possuir grande conteúdo episódico, que é dependente das regiões frontais e temporomediais, áreas cerebrais conhecidas por sofrerem alterações significativas com o avanço da idade, é um sistema de memória que parece apresentar declínio com o avanço da idade. O presente estudo procurou investigar a relação entre a memória autobiográfica e o envelhecimento em 57 voluntários saudáveis, que foram divididos em dois grupos: adultos jovens (18 a 50 anos) e adultos mais velhos (51 a 75 anos). METODOLOGIA: A investigação utilizou uma entrevista de memória autobiográfica constituída de 5 eventos públicos marcantes (flashbulb memories), 4 estímulos de valência (positiva e negativa) e 1 evento importante ocorrido no último ano. As entrevistas foram avaliadas e pontuadas de acordo com sistema de categorização dos detalhes relatados em episódicos e semânticos. Também foi usada uma bateria de testes neuropsicológicos composta por 7 testes agrupados em 5 domínios cognitivos destinados a avaliar respectivamente: velocidade de processamento da informação, memória verbal, memória visual, funções executivas e funcionamento intelectual, para examinar possível déficits nesses domínios e suas correlações com o desempenho na entrevista autobiográfica. O nível de significância foi de p < 0.05. RESULTADOS: Não foram encontradas diferenças significativas entre os dois grupos na avaliação de memória autobiográfica, com sujeitos lembrando-se de quantidades semelhantes de detalhes episódicos. Tanto eventos de valência positiva como negativa foram lembrados com a mesma qualidade. Houve uma tendência a um pior desempenho de pessoas mais velhas para relatar lembranças pessoais recentes (que ocorreram no último ano). O grupo mais velho teve pior desempenho em atividades de velocidade de processamento, flexibilidade mental, controle inibitório, memória episódica verbal e memória visual. Foi observada uma correlação positiva entre o desempenho em tarefa padronizada de memória verbal episódica e a quantidade de detalhes episódicos na entrevista de memória autobiográfica. Houve uma relação inversa entre a quantidade de eventos episódicos relatados e a velocidade de processamento de informações apenas no grupo de adultos jovens. Não foram observadas correlações entre os demais domínios cognitivos e os resultados na atividade de memória autobiográfica. CONCLUSÃO: Os resultados obtidos sugerem que as memórias autobiográficas são mais resistentes aos efeitos do tempo. Eventos que têm importante significado pessoal e grande conteúdo emocional aparentam ficar bem preservados na memória / INTRODUCTION: The autobiographical memory is a kind of episodic memory that covers an event\'s aspects of perception, affection, space and time. These are organized in representations that make up a personal history. Therefore, they are paramount to the creation of identity. This type of memory is a transitory and dynamic construction, generated from a foundation of subjacent knowledge stored in details that are specific on different levels. Because it has a vast episodic content, that is dependent of the frontal and temporal medial regions (areas of the brain known for suffering meaningful changes with the aging process), it is a memory system that apparently shows decline with the aging process. This study sought to investigate the relationship between autobiographical memory and aging in 57 healthy subjects that were divided into two groups: young adults (18 to 50 years old) and seniors (51 to 75 years old). METHOD: The investigation used an autobiographical memory interview made up of 5 memorable public events (flashbulb memories), 4 valence stimuli (positive and negative) and 1 important event that happened in the last year. The interviews were evaluated and scored according to the sorting system of details determined either as episodic or semantic. A battery of neuropsychological tests was also used, it was constituted of 7 tests grouped in 5 cognitive domains destined to evaluate, respectively: processing speed, verbal memory, visual memory, executive functions and intellectual performance, to examine possible deficits in these domains and its correlation to the performance in the autobiographical interview. The level of significance was of p < 0.05. RESULTS: There were no meaningful differences between groups in the evaluation of autobiographical memory. Subjects remembered similar amounts of episodic details. Events of both negative and positive valence were recalled with the same quality. In seniors, a tendency towards a worse performance was found when they were asked to tell recent personal memories (that happened last year). The results demonstrate age-related difficulties in activities of speed processing, mental flexibility, inhibitory control, episodic verbal memory and visual memory. A positive correlation was found between the performance in a standardized episodic verbal memory task and the amount of episodic details in the autobiographical memory interview. There was a reverse relation between the amount of episodic events told and the speed of processing information only in the young adults group. No correlations were found between the other cognitive domains and the results in the autobiographical memory activity. CONCLUSION: The obtained results suggest that autobiographical memories are more resistant to the effects of time. Events that have important personal meaning and great emotional content seem to be well preserved in memory

L’objectif général de cette thèse était de tester l’efficacité d’un entraînement exécutif ainsi que de tester les transferts des bénéfices de cet entraînement sur d’autres fonctions cognitives notamment la mémoire épisodique au niveau comportemental et électrophysiologique chez des adultes âgés. Pour cela, des effets test-retest ont été observés lors de la passation d’un même test de façon consécutive. Ainsi, la création de nouveaux tests pour confectionner le programme d’entraînement a été nécessaire pour ne pas avoir ces effets tests re-tests lors de la passation des pré-tests et des post-tests. Les entraînements exécutifs ont permis l’amélioration du fonctionnement exécutif mais aussi l’amélioration de la vitesse de traitement, et ces bénéfices ont permis l’annulation des effets d’âge dans le groupe entraîné sur une fonction exécutive : la mise à jour de la mémoire de travail. De plus, des effets de transfert ont été obtenus sur l’utilisation stratégique lors de l’encodage d’information en mémoire épisodique. Plus précisément, les adultes âgés entraînés utilisaient plus de stratégies d’encodages efficaces (encodage profond de type imagerie mentale ou phrase) après l’entraînement exécutif et l’utilisation de ces stratégies était plus efficace. Au niveau cérébral, l’entraînement exécutif semble engendrer des processus de spécialisation cérébrale se traduisant par une diminution de l’activité cérébrale de certaines zones cérébrales. Ce travail de thèse incite le développement de programmes d’entraînement des fonctions exécutives qui semblent permettre des effets de transfert à des tâches non entraînées et ces bénéfices semblent aussi modifier le fonctionnement cérébral, ce qui suppose un effet plus durable. Ceci confirme l’idée qu’un environnement stimulant cognitivement est en lien avec de bonnes capacités cognitives et contribue à un vieillissement réussi / The main objective of this thesis was to test the efficiency of an executive training program and the transfer effects of this program on other cognitive functions, in particular episodic memory strategies and performance. The present work was based on behavioral and electrophysiological data. Practice effects of executive tests have been first tested in young and older adults. Two tests have been practiced across ten practice sessions, and the results showed that the executive functions scores increased after practice, more for the older adults than for the younger ones. In order to develop an executive training program requiring several different tests, we have created new executive tests. The psychometric validity of these tests has been verified and confirmed. These tests have been used for our executive program. Thus, if training effects appeared following this program, they will not be due to the practice of a unique test. Eight sessions of executive stimulation with our new tests have allowed older adults increasing their executive functioning, measured by tests which were different from those employed in the training program (near transfer effects). Other cognitive functions were also improved, as processing speed and episodic memory. For the first time in the literature, far transfer effect have been found memory strategy efficiency and memory performance. More especially, the older adults trained group used more efficient memory strategies (mental imagery or making sentence with the words to be learnt) after the executive training program, and these strategies were more efficient to recall the words. Thus, the memory performance was increased in this group, in comparison the older adults group who did not participate to the training program. At a cerebral level, the executive training seems to decrease the duration of the cerebral activity for the same memory task. However, these results must to be taken with caution and require further analyses to be interpreted correctly. The results of this thesis encourages the development of training programs for executive functions which allows the transfer effects to untrained tasks. These benefits also appear to modify the brain functioning, which implies a longer lasting benefit effect. This work supports the idea that a cognitively stimulating environment is in line with higher cognitive abilities and contributes to successful aging

Les nombreuses études ayant porté sur le vieillissement cognitif ont très tôt permis de distinguer deux composantes clés de la cognition : une composante de « connaissances » définie comme l’ensemble des connaissances générales acquises tout au long de la vie, et une composante de « contrôle exécutif», défini comme l’ensemble des processus de contrôle et de régulation de l’action. Ces modèles permettent d’avancer l’idée selon laquelle le recours à ces deux composantes évolue de manière différentielle au cours de la vie. De ce fait, l’objectif de ce travail de thèse était d’examiner l’implication de ces deux composantes dans la cognition à différentes périodes de vie mais également de déterminer si l’une ou l’autre de ces composantes pouvaient jouer un rôle de protection contre le vieillissement cognitif. L’ensemble des résultats de ce travail suggère que la composante de « contrôle » serait impliquée de manière particulièrement importante dans la cognition chez les adultes âgés, et que cette même composante pourrait jouer un rôle de modération du fonctionnement cognitif au cours du vieillissement normal / Several studies of cognitive aging allow to distinguish two key components of the cognition: « knowledge » defined as the general knowledge acquired throughout the life, and the « executive control », defined as the set of operations that control and regulate cognitive performance. These models suggest that the recourse to these two components evolves in a differential way during the life. Therefore, the objective of this work was to examine the implication of these two components in the cognition at different periods of life but also to determine whether one or the other of these components could play a protective role against the cognitive aging. Results suggest mainly that « control » is more involved in the cognition in older adults, and that this component moderates age-related effect on cognitive functioning

Les études en neurosciences cognitives ont mis en évidence des phénomènes de neuroréorganisation au cours du vieillissement et des corrélats neuronaux spécifiques à la maturation de l’enfant, lors de la réalisation de tâches de mémoire épisodique. Examiner l’évolution des corrélats neuronaux de la récupération en mémoire et déterminer si les patterns cérébraux spécifiques à l’enfant et à l’adulte âgé sont bénéfiques à la performance mnésique constituaient les objectifs majeurs de ce travail. Les résultats ont mis en évidence que les patterns de neuroréorganisation liés à l’âge (modèle PASA et modèle HAROLD) sont déjà présents chez l’adulte jeune et ne sont donc pas spécifiques au cerveau âgé. En accord avec l’hypothèse de compensation, la neuroréorganisation observée chez les adultes âgés, sous la forme d’un shift frontal, apparait bénéfique à la performance mnésique et est liée à un meilleur fonctionnement exécutif. Enfin, l’activité pariétale et frontale chez l’enfant est associée au processus de familiarité, alors que chez les adultes jeunes l’activité pariétale est liée à la remémoration. Chez les adultes âgés, l’activité frontale est associée au processus de remémoration, suggérant un phénomène compensatoire. / Studies in cognitive neurosciences have highlighted neural reorganization phenomena in aging and specific neural correlates associated with children’s maturation during episodic memory tasks. To examine the evolution of the neural correlates of the memory retrieval and to determine if brain patterns specific to children and older adults are beneficial to the memory performance, were the major objectives of this work. Results showed that age-related neural reorganization patterns (PASA model and HAROLD model) are already present in young adults, therefore they are not specific to the older brains. In agreement with the compensation hypothesis, the neural reorganization observed in older adults, taking the form of a frontal shift, appears to be beneficial to memory performance and associated with a better executive functioning. Finally, frontal and parietal activities in children are associated with the familiarity process, whereas in young adults the parietal activity is related to a recollection process. In older adults, the frontal activity is associated with a recollection process, suggesting a compensatory phenomenon.

<p>In the present thesis, three empirical studies investigate autobiographical odor memory with regard to: (a) whole life-span age distributions, (b) phenomenological experience, (c) semantic processing, and (d) odor imagery. Study I explored potential influences of cue type (words, pictures, odors) on the retrieval of autobiographical memories. The results indicated that odor-evoked events were older than memories evoked by words and pictures. The bump for olfactory evoked information peaked in the first decade of life (<10 years of age), whereas the bump of the word- and picture-evoked age distributions peaked in the second decade (i.e., 11-20 years of age). Also, olfactory evoked events were associated with stronger feelings of being brought back in time. Study II investigated the influence of verbal processing on the retrieval of autobiographical olfactory information. The results revealed that semantic knowledge (i.e., the odor name) affected both the age distribution and phenomenological experience. Also, olfactory memories were associated with a higher emotional arousal. Study III addressed the influences of olfactory imagery on the age distribution and phenomenological experiences. The results showed that events evoked by odor imagery were older than memories evoked by words. No differences in phenomenological experiences were found between the two cue conditions. Based on these findings, it is suggested that (a) memories evoked by olfactory information are older than memories evoked by verbal and visual information, (b) odor memories are more emotional and associated with stronger feelings of being brought back in time, (c) knowledge of an odor’s name produces a shift from a more perceptually to a more conceptually driven retrieval, and that (d) imagined odor cues mimic the age distribution of events evoked by real odors. Overall, the results suggest that memories triggered by the olfactory sensory system are different from memories evoked by verbal or visual information.</p>

In the present thesis, three empirical studies investigate autobiographical odor memory with regard to: (a) whole life-span age distributions, (b) phenomenological experience, (c) semantic processing, and (d) odor imagery. Study I explored potential influences of cue type (words, pictures, odors) on the retrieval of autobiographical memories. The results indicated that odor-evoked events were older than memories evoked by words and pictures. The bump for olfactory evoked information peaked in the first decade of life (&lt;10 years of age), whereas the bump of the word- and picture-evoked age distributions peaked in the second decade (i.e., 11-20 years of age). Also, olfactory evoked events were associated with stronger feelings of being brought back in time. Study II investigated the influence of verbal processing on the retrieval of autobiographical olfactory information. The results revealed that semantic knowledge (i.e., the odor name) affected both the age distribution and phenomenological experience. Also, olfactory memories were associated with a higher emotional arousal. Study III addressed the influences of olfactory imagery on the age distribution and phenomenological experiences. The results showed that events evoked by odor imagery were older than memories evoked by words. No differences in phenomenological experiences were found between the two cue conditions. Based on these findings, it is suggested that (a) memories evoked by olfactory information are older than memories evoked by verbal and visual information, (b) odor memories are more emotional and associated with stronger feelings of being brought back in time, (c) knowledge of an odor’s name produces a shift from a more perceptually to a more conceptually driven retrieval, and that (d) imagined odor cues mimic the age distribution of events evoked by real odors. Overall, the results suggest that memories triggered by the olfactory sensory system are different from memories evoked by verbal or visual information.

Avhandlingen handlar om prospektivt minne (PM) hos personer med utvecklingsstörning. PM syftar på att formulera intentioner och genomföra dessa någon gång i framtiden, antingen inom en definierad tidsram eller i samband med en specifik händelse. Frågeställningar: 1. Finns det en kvalitativ och kvantitativ skillnad mellan prospektivt minne hos personer med utvecklingsstörning och en kontrollgrupp? (Artikel I – II) 2. Hur ser sambandet mellan prospektivt minne, arbetsminne och episodiskt minne ut hos personer med utvecklingsstörning och, skiljer sig detta åt jämfört med kontrollgruppen? (Artikel II) 3. Vilka förutsättningar vid inkodning och hågkomst är kompatibla? (Artikel III) 4. På vilket sätt kan svag association mellan olika delar av information bidra till prospektiva minnesfel? (Artikel IV) 5. Går det att särskilja en hög- respektive lågpresterande grupp personer med utvecklingsstörning med avseende på prospektiv minnesprestation? (Artikel II) Personer med utvecklingsstörning begår fler prospektiva minnesfel än personer i kontrollgruppen. Motsvarande gruppskillnad finns inte för självskattat minne. Prospektiv minnesprestation är bättre med bilder jämfört med ord som prospektiva ledtrådar, mest tydligt för personer med utvecklingsstörning. Arbetsminneskapacitet visade ett samband med både prospektivt minne och antalet falska minnen i kognitivt krävande situationer, till exempel, situationer med flera parallella prospektiva minnesuppgifter. Falska minnen och prospektivt minne hade ett samband hos personer med utvecklingsstörning. Att felaktigt känna igen bilder med bara delvis bekanta delar och att känna igen prospektiva ledtrådar utan att komma ihåg själva intentionen hade ett samband hos personer med utvecklingsstörning. Personer med utvecklingsstörning var också sämre än kontrollgruppen på att upprepa tidsintervall. Detta kan till exempel bero på bristande episodiskt minne och begränsade strategier för att lösa den här typen av uppgifter. Resultaten diskuteras i relation till träning av prospektivt minne och val av hjälpmedel. / This thesis deals with prospective memory (PM) in individuals with intellectual disability. The term refers to planning and executing actions that cannot be performed immediately and have to be stored in memory and retrieved either within a specified timeframe or to be associated with a specific event. Following research questions were explored: 1. Does prospective memory performance in the intellectual disability group differ quantitatively and qualitatively compared to a control group of individuals without intellectual disability? (Paper I – II) 2. What are the relations between prospective memory, working memory and episodic memory in individuals with intellectual disability, and how are these relations different from the relations found in individuals without intellectual disability? (Paper II) 3. What conditions constitute compatibility between encoding and retrieval of prospective memory tasks? (Paper III) 4. In what way might weak binding contribute to PM failure? (Paper IV) 5. Is it possible to identify high and low PM-performing groups of individuals with intellectual disability? (Paper II) The results of the studies demonstrated that individuals with intellectual disability commit more PM errors than individuals in the control group, despite similarities in self-rated memory. Pictures as PM cues improved PM performance in comparison to words in both groups. This may be important primarily for recognition of the PM cue, particularly in the intellectual disability group. As to working memory capacity, it also shows a relation to both PM performance and binding performance in cognitively demanding situations (e.g., tasks with multiple parallel PM tasks). Furthermore, it was found that binding is related to PM performance in the intellectual disability group as there is a relationship between feature errors and recognition of cues, though not retrieving the correct intention. Finally, time reproduction was found to be weak in the intellectual disability group compared to the control group. This may be due to, for example, weak episodic memory and limited strategies for solving this type of task. These findings are discussed in relation to PM training and PM aids.

The general aim of the thesis was to investigate potential differences in memory performance between participants across the adult life span with and without self-reported musculoskeletal pain. Chronic musculoskeletal pain is a major health related problem in our society. A common complaint related to chronic pain is about cognitive difficulties in attention, memory, and decision making. A number of studies have demonstrated that people with pain also perform wors on tasks measuring, for example episodic memory, semantic memory, and working memory. The present thesis aimed at replying these findings, by using a non-clinical population based sample. the potential differences in memory performance between people with and without pain were examined across the adult life span, in order to disentangle potential pain by age interactions. This was made by using both cross-sectional and longitudinal data. Study I aimed at studying differences in episodic memory performance, semantic memory performance, and implicit memory performance, between people with and without musculoskeletal pain. Differences were found for all three memory systems, but disappeared after controlling for years of formal education. In Study II an extension of the first study was made, in which performance on a range of cognitive tests were analysed. General differences were demonstrated , but yet again, years of education together with depression ruled out the effects. The most robust effects were found for word comprehension and construction ability. Finally, Study III used 5- and 10 year follow up studies to examine change over time in cognitive performance as a function of pain. The main finding from this study was that semantic memory for the oldest is impaired over time as a function of pain. An additional analysis showed similar patterns, regardless of age, for construction ability.

The aim of this doctoral thesis was to study neuropsychological function in relation to structural and functional brain changes in Alzheimer´s disease (AD). In the first study relations between hippocampal volume, neuropsychological function and limbic-hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (LHPA) axis disturbances in AD were investigated with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Reduced hippocampal CA1 volume and suppressed cortisol levels in combination, best predicted the variation in neuropsychological performance. The conclusion was that reduced hippocampal volume and LHPA axis disturbances are associated to level of cognitive function in AD. The second study focused on whether patients with early AD showed an altered regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) pattern compared to control persons, correlation between performance on memory tests and rCBF in sub-lobar volumes of the brain were investigated. The rCBF was measured with single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). AD-patients showed a significantly lower rCBF in temporoparietal regions including left hippocampus compared to controls. The diagnostic sensitivity and specificity for AD was high in temporoparietal regions. AD-patients had significantly lower performance on semantic and, in particular, episodic memory-tests compared to the controls, and their performance on several episodic tests correlated with rCBF in parietal and temporal regions including left hippocampus, which suggest that abnormalities in the rCBF pattern underlie impaired episodic memory functioning in AD. The conclusion was that an observer-independent analyzing method for SPECT with sub-lobar volumes VOI´s is promising in the diagnosis of AD. In a third study possible differences in memory-related functional brain activation between persons with high versus low risk for AD were examined with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The high-risk individuals performed worse than low-risk individuals on tests of episodic memory. Patterns of brain activity during episodic encoding and retrieval showed significant group differences. During both encoding and retrieval, the low-risk persons showed increased activity relative to a baseline condition in prefrontal and hippocampal brain regions that previously have been implicated in episodic memory. By contrast, the high-risk persons did not significantly activate any prefrontal regions, but instead showed increased activity in visual occipito-temporal regions. The conclusion was that patterns of prefrontal brain activity related to episodic memory differed between persons with high versus low risk for AD, and lowered prefrontal activity may predict subsequent disease. In a final study SPECT was used to map patterns of rCBF in an activated state (an episodic encoding task) and in a rest condition in persons with mild AD and in healthy elderly control persons. A reduction of rCBF in temporoparietal regions that was more pronounced in mild AD in the activated encoding task was observed. The conclusion was that there are rCBF differences between mild AD patients and healthy controls in temporoparietal regions, and the temporoparietal reduction is more pronounced during activation than during rest which might be important in the early diagnosis of AD. Taken together, these findings show that level of neuropsychological function, notably episodic memory, can be systematically related to functional disturbances in the LHPA axis and to the function of temporoparietal and prefrontal brain regions in AD patients. These changes are detectable in patients with risk for AD and in an early phase of AD which suggests that the obtained results might be important for early diagnosis of AD.

Comparative research on event memory has typically focused on the binding of spatial and temporal information in memory, but much less is known about how animals remember information about the source of their memories (i.e., whether the event is something they performed themselves or whether they observed it). The purpose of the present study was to examine how rhesus monkeys (n = 8) and 3- to 4- year-old children (n = 20) remember this information along with other relevant event features (object identity, spatial location, temporal properties and contextual features) in working memory. In Experiment 1, rhesus monkeys completed five different delayed matching-to-sample tasks to assess independent encoding of these five event components. In Experiment 2, the monkeys either performed or observed an event and then had to respond to a randomly selected pair of memory tests used in the previous experiment. In Experiment 3, children were presented with the same memory task, but were given a brief demonstration to learn how to perform the task. Both children and monkeys responded to these tests using photos and shapes (for the identity and spatial tests) and icons (for the temporal, agency and context tests). The monkeys demonstrated significantly above-chance performance on the identity, spatial, temporal and agency tasks. The children were above chance on the one component the monkeys had difficulty with (context), but conversely demonstrated difficulty on the temporal memory test. There was evidence of feature integration in both monkeys and children. Specifically, the children were significantly more likely to respond correctly to the second memory test if they had also been correct on the first memory test. Two of five rhesus monkeys also showed this effect, indicating that for these individuals, the features were integrated in working memory. Implications of this research are discussed in relation to self-awareness and episodic memory research in children and nonhuman species.