Increased Pupil Size during Future Thinking in a Subject with Retrograde Amnesia

International audienceRecent research has assessed pupil size during past thinking in patients with retrograde amnesia. Building on this research, we assessed pupil size during future thinking in a retrograde amnesia patient. To this end, we measured pupil size during past and future thinking in L, a 19-year-old, right-handed man free of neurological/psychiatric disorders except for retrograde amnesia that occurred after an episode of fugue. During a past thinking condition, we invited L to retrieve retrograde events (i.e., events that occurred before amnesia) and anterograde events (i.e., events that occurred after amnesia). During a future thinking condition, we invited him to imagine events that might occur the following week, the following month, and in the new year. Past and future thinking occurred while L’s pupil size was monitored with eye-tracking glasses. L demonstrated higher specificity during future than during past thinking. Critically, the results demonstrated a larger pupil size during future than during past thinking. The larger pupil size during future thinking observed in L can be attributed to the high cognitive load involved in future thinking. Our study not only demonstrates preserved future thinking in a patient with dissociative retrograde amnesia, but also shows that pupillometry can be used for the physiological assessment of future thinking in retrograde amnesia patients

Eye movements of recent and remote autobiographical memories: fewer and longer lasting fixations during the retrieval of childhood memories

International audienc

Loneliness of residents in retirement homes during the COVID-19 crisis

International audienc

The discounted future: Relationship between temporal discounting and future thinking in Alzheimer’s disease

International audienc

Pupil size as an indicator of cognitive activity in mild Alzheimer's Disease

International audienceIt is well established that pupil activity indexes cognitive processing. For instance, research has consistently demonstrated that the pupil reacts to working memory span task performance. However, little is known about pupil reaction to cognitive processing in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). We thus investigated whether span tasks can modulate pupil size in patients with AD. We invited 24 patients with AD and 24 healthy older adults to perform backward and forward spans, as well as to count aloud in a control condition, while their pupil activity was recorded with an eye tracking glasses. In patients with AD, analysis demonstrated larger pupil size during backward spans (M = 2.12, SD = .39) than during forward spans (M = 1.98, SD = .36)[t(23) = 3.22, p = .004], larger pupil size during forward spans than during counting (M = 1.67, SD = .33) [t(23) = 4.75, p < .001], as well as larger pupil size during backward spans than during counting [t(23) = 10.60, p < .001]. In control participants, analysis demonstrated larger pupil size during backward spans (M = 3.36, SD = .49) than during forward spans (M = 2.85, SD = .68) [t(23) = 5.82, p < .001], larger pupil size during forward spans than during counting (M = 2.09, SD = .62) [t(23) = 5.42, < .001], as well as larger pupil size during backward spans than during counting [t(23) = 9.70, p < .001]. Results also demonstrated a significant interaction effect between groups and conditions [F(2,92) = 16.63, p < .001]; in other words, patients with AD have showed fewer variations on the pupil size across the conditions compared to the control participants. The larger pupil size during backward spans, compared with forward spans or counting, can be attributed to the high cognitive load of backward spans. The modulation of pupil size, as observed across backward/forward spans and counting, can possibly be attributed to sympathetic/adrenergic and parasympathetic/cholinergic activities. Our study demonstrates the value of pupillometry as a potential biomarker of cognitive processing in AD

Pupil size as an indicator of cognitive activity in mild Alzheimer's Disease

International audienceIt is well established that pupil activity indexes cognitive processing. For instance, research has consistently demonstrated that the pupil reacts to working memory span task performance. However, little is known about pupil reaction to cognitive processing in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). We thus investigated whether span tasks can modulate pupil size in patients with AD. We invited 24 patients with AD and 24 healthy older adults to perform backward and forward spans, as well as to count aloud in a control condition, while their pupil activity was recorded with an eye tracking glasses. In patients with AD, analysis demonstrated larger pupil size during backward spans (M = 2.12, SD = .39) than during forward spans (M = 1.98, SD = .36)[t(23) = 3.22, p = .004], larger pupil size during forward spans than during counting (M = 1.67, SD = .33) [t(23) = 4.75, p < .001], as well as larger pupil size during backward spans than during counting [t(23) = 10.60, p < .001]. In control participants, analysis demonstrated larger pupil size during backward spans (M = 3.36, SD = .49) than during forward spans (M = 2.85, SD = .68) [t(23) = 5.82, p < .001], larger pupil size during forward spans than during counting (M = 2.09, SD = .62) [t(23) = 5.42, < .001], as well as larger pupil size during backward spans than during counting [t(23) = 9.70, p < .001]. Results also demonstrated a significant interaction effect between groups and conditions [F(2,92) = 16.63, p < .001]; in other words, patients with AD have showed fewer variations on the pupil size across the conditions compared to the control participants. The larger pupil size during backward spans, compared with forward spans or counting, can be attributed to the high cognitive load of backward spans. The modulation of pupil size, as observed across backward/forward spans and counting, can possibly be attributed to sympathetic/adrenergic and parasympathetic/cholinergic activities. Our study demonstrates the value of pupillometry as a potential biomarker of cognitive processing in AD

Theory of mind and linguistic pragmatic difficulties in behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia

International audienc

Beauty and Paintings: Aesthetic Experience in Patients with Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia When Viewing Abstract and Concrete Paintings

We assessed the aesthetic experience of patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) to understand their ability to experience feelings of the sublime and to be moved when viewing paintings. We exposed patients with bvFTD and control participants to concrete and abstract paintings and asked them how moved they were by these paintings and whether the latter were beautiful or ugly. Patients with bvFTD declared being less moved than control participants by both abstract and concrete paintings. No significant differences were observed between abstract and concrete paintings in both patients with bvFTD and control participants. Patients with bvFTD provided fewer “beautiful” and more “ugly” responses than controls for both abstract and concrete paintings. No significant differences in terms of “beautiful” and “ugly” responses were observed between abstract and concrete paintings in both patients with bvFTD and control participants. These findings suggest disturbances in the basic affective experience of patients with bvFTD when they are exposed to paintings, as well as a bias in their ability to judge the aesthetic quality of paintings

“Who will I be?”: The future of the self as described by Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients

International audienceWe assessed how Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients would imagine their self in the future. AD patients andhealthy controls were asked to generate statements beginning with “I-will-be” to describe how they sawthemselves or how they wished to be in the future. These statements were analyzed in terms of four self-dimensions, i.e., physical self, social self, psychological self and self-cessation. The latter was investigated toassess how AD patients processed the idea of their own mortality. Findings demonstrated fewer total “I-will-be” statements in AD participants than in controls, suggesting that the construction of future self-conceptsbecomes weaker in the disease. Our results also demonstrated fewer statements related to the physical-self,the social-self and the psychological-self, and more statements related to self-cessation in AD participantsthan in controls. These findings suggest that AD patients are highly preoccupied by the idea of death whenthinking about the future of their self

Journées d’enseignement supérieur de neurologie – Nantes 2016

National audienceno abstrac