Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry logoLink to Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry
. 1998 Dec;65(6):890–898. doi: 10.1136/jnnp.65.6.890

Forgetting rates in neuropsychiatric disorders

P Lewis 1, M Kopelman 1
PMCID: PMC2170384  PMID: 9854966

Abstract

OBJECTIVE—Previous studies have attributed accelerated forgetting rates on recognition memory tasks to temporal lobe pathology, but findings in some patient groups may have been attributable to metabolic disruption. Findings in psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia are conflicting. The purpose of the present study was to compare forgetting rates in patients with confusional states (post-elecroconvulsive therapy (post-ECT), delirium), with those obtained in schizophrenic patients (with putative temporal lobe pathology), non-ECT depressed patients, and healthy controls. The findings could also be compared with previous reports in patients with head injury, focal structural lesions, and Alzheimer's dementia.
METHODS—Two studies employed a picture recognition task to examine forgetting rates, the first between delays of 1 minute, 15 minutes, and 30 minutes, and the second between delays of 10 minutes, 2hours, and 24hours.
RESULTS—There were no significant differences in forgetting rates between 1 minute and 30 minutes, but the ECT group showed accelerated forgetting between 10 minutes and 2 hours compared with healthy controls, associated with a rapid decline in "hit rate". This was not attributable to differential changes in either depression or severity of memory impairment. There were no differences in forgetting rates across the other subject groups.
CONCLUSION—Post-ECT confusional state patients (similarly to "within post-traumatic amnesia" patients with head injury) show accelerated forgetting on a recognition memory task and, in this, they contrast with patients who have focal structural lesions or widespread cortical atrophy. Accelerated forgetting may reflect the effect of disrupted cerebral metabolism on either "consolidation" or memory "binding" processes.



Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (131.0 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Arnold S. E., Hyman B. T., Van Hoesen G. W., Damasio A. R. Some cytoarchitectural abnormalities of the entorhinal cortex in schizophrenia. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1991 Jul;48(7):625–632. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.1991.01810310043008. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. BECK A. T., WARD C. H., MENDELSON M., MOCK J., ERBAUGH J. An inventory for measuring depression. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1961 Jun;4:561–571. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.1961.01710120031004. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Brown R., Colter N., Corsellis J. A., Crow T. J., Frith C. D., Jagoe R., Johnstone E. C., Marsh L. Postmortem evidence of structural brain changes in schizophrenia. Differences in brain weight, temporal horn area, and parahippocampal gyrus compared with affective disorder. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1986 Jan;43(1):36–42. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.1986.01800010038005. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Calev A., Edelist S., Kugelmass S., Lerer B. Performance of long-stay schizophrenics on matched verbal and visuospatial recall tasks. Psychol Med. 1991 Aug;21(3):655–660. doi: 10.1017/s0033291700022297. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Calev A. Recall and recognition in chronic nondemented schizophrenics: use of matched tasks. J Abnorm Psychol. 1984 May;93(2):172–177. doi: 10.1037//0021-843x.93.2.172. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Christensen H., Kopelman M. D., Stanhope N., Lorentz L., Owen P. Rates of forgetting in Alzheimer dementia. Neuropsychologia. 1998 Jun;36(6):547–557. doi: 10.1016/s0028-3932(97)00116-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Crawford J. R., Besson J. A., Bremner M., Ebmeier K. P., Cochrane R. H., Kirkwood K. Estimation of premorbid intelligence in schizophrenia. Br J Psychiatry. 1992 Jul;161:69–74. doi: 10.1192/bjp.161.1.69. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Crow T. J. Molecular pathology of schizophrenia: more than one disease process? Br Med J. 1980 Jan 12;280(6207):66–68. doi: 10.1136/bmj.280.6207.66. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Cutting J. Memory in functional psychosis. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1979 Nov;42(11):1031–1037. doi: 10.1136/jnnp.42.11.1031. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Freed D. M., Corkin S., Cohen N. J. Forgetting in H.M.: a second look. Neuropsychologia. 1987;25(3):461–471. doi: 10.1016/0028-3932(87)90071-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Freed D. M., Corkin S., Growdon J. H., Nissen M. J. Selective attention in Alzheimer's disease: characterizing cognitive subgroups of patients. Neuropsychologia. 1989;27(3):325–339. doi: 10.1016/0028-3932(89)90022-5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Greene J. D., Baddeley A. D., Hodges J. R. Analysis of the episodic memory deficit in early Alzheimer's disease: evidence from the doors and people test. Neuropsychologia. 1996 Jun;34(6):537–551. doi: 10.1016/0028-3932(95)00151-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Huppert F. A., Kopelman M. D. Rates of forgetting in normal ageing: a comparison with dementia. Neuropsychologia. 1989;27(6):849–860. doi: 10.1016/0028-3932(89)90008-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Huppert F. A., Piercy M. Dissociation between learning and remembering in organic amnesia. Nature. 1978 Sep 28;275(5678):317–318. doi: 10.1038/275317a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Huppert F. A., Piercy M. Normal and abnormal forgetting in organic amnesia: effect of locus of lesion. Cortex. 1979 Sep;15(3):385–390. doi: 10.1016/s0010-9452(79)80065-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Huppert F. A., Piercy M. Recognition memory in amnesic patients: effect of temporal context and familiarity of material. Cortex. 1976 Mar;12(1):3–20. doi: 10.1016/s0010-9452(76)80024-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Jeste D. V., Lohr J. B. Hippocampal pathologic findings in schizophrenia. A morphometric study. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1989 Nov;46(11):1019–1024. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.1989.01810110061009. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Kopelman M. D., Corn T. H. Cholinergic 'blockade' as a model for cholinergic depletion. A comparison of the memory deficits with those of Alzheimer-type dementia and the alcoholic Korsakoff syndrome. Brain. 1988 Oct;111(Pt 5):1079–1110. doi: 10.1093/brain/111.5.1079. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Kopelman M. D. Rates of forgetting in Alzheimer-type dementia and Korsakoff's syndrome. Neuropsychologia. 1985;23(5):623–638. doi: 10.1016/0028-3932(85)90064-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Kopelman M. D., Stanhope N. Rates of forgetting in organic amnesia following temporal lobe, diencephalic, or frontal lobe lesions. Neuropsychology. 1997 Jul;11(3):343–356. doi: 10.1037//0894-4105.11.3.343. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Kovelman J. A., Scheibel A. B. A neurohistological correlate of schizophrenia. Biol Psychiatry. 1984 Dec;19(12):1601–1621. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Levin H. S., High W. M., Jr, Eisenberg H. M. Learning and forgetting during posttraumatic amnesia in head injured patients. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1988 Jan;51(1):14–20. doi: 10.1136/jnnp.51.1.14. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  23. Mayes A. R. Learning and memory disorders and their assessment. Neuropsychologia. 1986;24(1):25–39. doi: 10.1016/0028-3932(86)90041-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  24. McKee R. D., Squire L. R. Equivalent forgetting rates in long-term memory for diencephalic and medial temporal lobe amnesia. J Neurosci. 1992 Oct;12(10):3765–3772. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.12-10-03765.1992. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  25. McKenna P. J., Tamlyn D., Lund C. E., Mortimer A. M., Hammond S., Baddeley A. D. Amnesic syndrome in schizophrenia. Psychol Med. 1990 Nov;20(4):967–972. doi: 10.1017/s0033291700036667. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  26. Shoqeirat M. A., Mayes A. R. Spatiotemporal memory and rate of forgetting in acute schizophrenics. Psychol Med. 1988 Nov;18(4):843–853. doi: 10.1017/s0033291700009788. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  27. Squire L. R. Two forms of human amnesia: an analysis of forgetting. J Neurosci. 1981 Jun;1(6):635–640. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.01-06-00635.1981. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES