Does Sex Matter? High Semantic Autobiographical Retrieval in Women and Men With Alzheimer's Disease

Overview

Journal Psychol Rep

Specialties Psychiatry
Psychology

Date 2022 Sep 27

PMID 36165092

Authors

Mohamad El Haj

Philippe Allain

Claire Boutoleau-Bretonniere

Guillaume Chapelet

Dimitrios Kapogiannis

Andre Ndobo

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The decline of autobiographical memory in Alzheimer's disease (AD) is mainly characterized by overgenerality. While there is a large body of research on autobiographical overgenerality in AD, this research has mainly assessed retrieval with a dichotomy between specific vs. general retrieval. To go beyond this dichotomy, we assessed several degrees of autobiographical specificity in patients with AD, namely, we assessed specific vs. categoric vs. extended vs. semantic retrieval. We also assessed sex differences regarding these degrees of autobiographical specificity. We invited patients with mild AD and control participants to complete sentences (e. g., "When I think back to/of…") with autobiographical memories. Memories were categorized into specific, categoric, extended, or semantic memories. Results demonstrated more semantic than specific, categoric or extended memories in men and women with AD. In control participants, analysis demonstrated more specific than categoric, extended, and semantic memories in men and women. Also, no significant differences were observed between women and men with AD, or between control women and men, regarding specific, categoric, extended, and semantic memoires. This study offers not only a nuanced analysis of autobiographical specificity in patients with mild AD, but also an original analysis regarding this specificity by sex.

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