Autobiographical event memory in patients with mesial temporal lobe lesions: impact of test methodology and aetiology of lesion

There is some evidence that in patients with temporal lobe lesions, the presence and temporal pattern of deficits in autobiographical event memory depends on aetiology and the methodology used. In this study, 19 patients with mesial temporal lesions that involved the hippocampus (14 temporal lobectomy [TL] and 5 cerebral vascular accident [CVA]) were compared to 20 normal control [NC] subjects on the Autobiographical Memory Interview, Autobiographical Fluency Test for Events (AFT-Events) and a modified Crovitz Cue Technique. All three measures revealed impairments in autobiographical event recall for the TL patients, but only the Crovitz Cue Technique detected a deficit for the CVA group. No temporal gradients in retrograde recall were found. The findings indicate that test methodology and aetiology of lesion influence the likelihood of finding deficits in recall of autobiographical events but not the temporal pattern of deficits.