Le voyage de Victor Hugo aux Pyrénées, un voyage dans la mémoire

1843 can be considered as a turning point in the life of Victor Hugo. Certainly in the middle of his life he had experienced dramatic events specifically the failure of his play Les Burgraves, the wedding of his daughter Leopoldine and more importantly her tragic death by drowning in the Seine at Villequier in September of the same year. These events had important psychological and emotional effects on him. We have tried to identify what affected Victor Hugo's unconscious thought processes by analysing different texts linked to these happenings, primarily the account of the journey referred to as Pyrenees by the executors of his will. This analysis leads us to establish a link with the drawings of Victor Hugo in which unconscious processes are already expressed by « l’homme ocean ». But if the purpose of our study is above all a psychoanalytical understanding of the process leading to involuntary memory, the « proustian memory », we are trying to replace this process in Victor Hugo's existential context, in the moment between the before and the after.     

Memory improvement in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy at one-year postoperative

Introduction

Several studies have assessed the impact of surgery on both anterograde and remote memory in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). The majority of results have shown an extensive memory deficit in patients after temporal resection (TL). However, few protocols have used a prospective longitudinal design. Moreover, the postoperative delays were variable from one study to the next, instead of regular monitoring to identify the potential effect of time elapsed after surgery on memory performance. In addition, some studies have not used strict inclusion criteria to establish homogeneous patient groups. Finally, the impact of surgery on memory has been often assessed by comparing memory skills between epileptic patients and healthy controls. Our aim was to examine the impact of TL on memory in patients with TLE, recruited according to clear-cut clinical criteria. Moreover, we focused on memory performance progression per se in epileptic patients pre- and postoperatively, rather than on memory performance analysis expressed as “deficient” or “normal”.

Methods

We assessed 30 patients with unilateral TLE (17 right TLE and 13 left TLE) on four anterograde memory tests and six remote memory tasks. Patients completed all tests preoperatively, and 5 and 12 months after TL.

Results

Five months after surgery, performance was equivalent to the preoperative scores for both groups in anterograde memory tasks and remote memory tests. One year after TL, patients with right TLE showed enhanced performance in the verbal anterograde memory tests and in retrieving recent autobiographical memories. Results for left TL showed improved scores only in a recognition memory test of faces.

Conclusions

In the present study, surgical patients were “double winners” gaining seizure freedom and potential of memory stability or recovery. The gain was observed only 12 months after surgery and following temporal resection lateralisation. Our data showed postoperative memory improvement in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy presenting with specific clinical characteristics.     

Délires de reduplication mnésique : connaissance de soi et perplexité identitaire

Objective

An inconsistency in the sense of self does not necessarily follow from a deficit of autobiographical memory.

Patients and methods

We report two cases of memory reduplication with delusion, one concerning an event reduplication memory, the other one a spatial reduplication memory.

Results

The first patient, J.M., presents with a confusion of identity, which forces him to search for some evidence in his imaginary memory. The second patient, R.B., remembered having juxtaposed two separate geographical sites, became aware of his false conviction, and finally attempted to find explanations for this perceptual illusion.

Conclusion

Impairment of self-knowledge can be caused not only by a memory deficit, but also by a difficulty of subject to incorporate an imaginary history in his memory (narrative identity), particularly when reality is not coherent with the imaginary history.     

Overgeneralization of autobiographical memory strategies in cannabis users and multiple psychoactive substance consumers

Objectives

Psychoactive substance consumption induces cognitive impairments in terms of episodic memory and attentional and executive function deficits. This study aims to investigate whether the recall of autobiographical memories is disturbed in substance consumers, and in particular whether those patients tend to evoke memories at a general level rather than at a specific level when confronted by an emotional cue word. Furthermore, we aim to verify whether adopting a more general memory retrieving style is a dynamic phenomenon and if it depends on the type of substance consumed.

Design and methods

The participants of this research were 51 cannabis users, including 17 occasional cannabis users, 17 cannabis abusers and 17 individuals addicted to cannabis. They were compared to 18 multiple substance-dependent individuals and to 38 nondependent individuals. Participants were subjected to the Williams and Scott (1988) [39] autobiographical memory test. After an assessment of the mode of substance consumption, several clinical dimensions were measured, such as depression (BDI), anxiety (STAI Y A and B), alexithymia (TAS 20) and episodic memory (RLS-15).

Results

The results show that the percentage of general positive and negative memories recalled increases progressively as the consumption takes on the characteristics of addictive behavior, while we observe no deficit in episodic memory. The level of alexithymia evolved in parallel with the percentage of general memories. These results are not dependent on the type of substance used and can not be explained by the level of depression.

Conclusions

Overgeneralization is a phenomenon observable in psychoactive substance consumers, whatever the type of substances used, which sets in progressively as the dependence develops. Our results show that overgeneralization is not only due to an impairment of mnesic abilities, implying that this phenomenon could be underlined by several mechanisms. The role of overgeneralization as a functional avoidance established in attempt to protect individuals from emotion resurgence is discussed. Furthermore, the impact of deficits in executive functions on the recall of autobiographical memories in substance abusers has not been studied and would be an interesting path of research.     

Working memory in schizophrenia: a review

INTRODUCTION: Working memory refers to a limited capacity system for temporary storage and processing of information that is known to depend on the integrity of the prefrontal cortex. It has been classically described as composed of a "central executive" that performs control, selection and planning functions, and two "slave" systems: on the one hand, the phonological loop that holds verbal, speech-based representations, and on the other hand, the visuospatial sketchpad that manipulates spatial and object visual representations. LITERATURE FINDINGS: Studies in schizophrenia have used different tasks that tap different processes within the working memory. Despite the variety of measures, there is solid neuropsychological evidence that patients with schizophrenia demonstrate deficits in all subsystems of working memory. Several studies have shown no correlations between working memory deficits and age, gender, premorbid IQ, duration of disease or positive syndrome, but a correlation has been found with a low-educational level, and negative and disorganization symptoms. Neuroimaging studies have provided evidence of an involvement of the dorsolateral-prefrontal cortex during working memory performance. Many studies have demonstrated a functional deficit in this area. However, several recent studies have reported either equal or increased activation of the dorsolateral-prefrontal cortex in schizophrenia during working memory performance. Working memory deficits are present early in the course of schizophrenia and they have been shown to be consistently associated with reduced levels of elementary social skills and learning capacity. Unaffected relatives of individuals with schizophrenia and individuals diagnosed with schizotypal personality demonstrate deficits in tasks designed to measure working memory function. Working memory dysfunctions might be suitable candidate markers for vulnerability. Certain executive sub-processes seem to be the most heritable component of the working memory. Working memory deficits in schizophrenia may benefit from specific stimulation of receptors such as the dopaminergic D1 receptor, adrenergic alpha-2A receptor or nicotinic receptors. Few studies on the effect of antipsychotic medication on working memory in schizophrenia have been carried out and their results are highly variable. Atypical antipsychotic drugs, notably risperidone, have appeared to improve performance in working memory tasks. Cognitive exercises can improve working memory with a six-month persistent effect.     

Recovery from hypoxia and ECS-induced amnesia after a single exposure to training environment

A single exposure to the training environment for 3 min was sufficient to produce recovery from hypoxia-induced amnesia when tested 30 min later. Recovery from ECS-induced amnesia was evidenced 5 min after exposure to the training environment. The results make a state dependent learning explanation for memory loss after ECS or hypoxia unfeasible, since the recovery is seen immediately after the memory loss is evidenced. The author proposes that amnestic treatments prevent the integration of the training event into existing functional memory systems and consequently the training has no significance for the animal. Reexposure to the training environment precipitates a continuation of these integrative processes and the memory becomes organized in such a way that it has a behavioral consequence (avoidance) on the subsequent trial.     

L’hypermnésie maniaque : un mythe ou une réalité clinique ?

This article presents the first case report of hypomanic hypermnesia. This phenomenon evocated by the French school of Psychiatry is defined as a massive recall of autobiographical information during the hypomanic episode, not available in normal mood. According to an exhaustive review of the literature, the authors propose a clue model of the (hypo) manic hypermnesia. This model is essentially based on the effects of mood congruent memory (MCM) and mood dependent memory (MDM) with the hypothetical increase of the retrieval effort for specific information.