TABLE 1.
Main features of the studies included in the review.
| Experimental paradigms | Article | Article type | Imaging technique | Socio-demographical data | Clinical features | Psychiatric and neurological comorbidity | Results (Brodmann area, when available) | Delay to imagery | ||
| Pathological condition | Resting-state neuroimaging studies |
Brand et al. (18) | Retrospective controlled study, | [18FDG]- PET | 14 patients (11 men), mean age 36, 6 years old. 19 healthy controlled, paired |
Autobiographical retrograde amnesia | Psychiatric and neurological history were exclusion criteria | Right inferolateral prefrontal hypometabolism (BA n.a.) |
n.a. | |
| Hennig-Fast et al. (22) | Case-report | [18FDG]- PET | 39yo, man | GARA | Previously treated alcohol dependence. Anxious-depressive and narcisistic personality strucutre |
Hypometabolism in the right temporo-mesial region | Within first weeks | |||
| Kitamura et al. (23) | Case-report | 11C WAY-100635 PET (5-HT 1A receptor) | 30yo, man Comparison to 14 healthy controls |
GARA | None | No difference at onset | 1 month | |||
| Magnin et al. (25) | Case-report | SPECT | 51yo, man | GARA, LOI and AA | Functional disorder (abnormal movement and sensitive disorders) Major depressive disorder ongoing since 6 months prior onset of amnesic symptoms. |
Hypoperfusion of bilateral temporal lobes, bilateral frontal superior gyri, bilateral orbitofrontal gyri and right head of the caudate nucleus |
1 month | |||
| Piolino et al. (27) | Case-report | [18FDG]- PET | 42yo, man | GARA and LOI | None | Decreased metabolism in the right ventral frontal gyrus (BA 11) | 16 months | |||
| Thomas-Antérion et al. (28) | Case-report | [18FDG]- PET | 30–40yo, man | GARA and LOI | None | Decreased metabolism in the left temporal polar cortex (BA 38), left amygdala, left hippocampus, left para-hippocampus (BA 36), left fusiform gyrus (BA 20 and BA 37) and the left insula. | 15 months | |||
| Thomas-Antérion et al. (29) | Case series | [18FDG]- PET | Case 2: 19yo man Case 3: 19yo, man |
GARA | None for both cases | Decreased right posterior middle temporal gyrus | n.a. | |||
| Tramoni et al. (30) | Case-report | Structural MRI, MTR and spectroscopy | 34yo, man 25 healthy controls |
GARA and LOI | None | Decrease magnetization transfer ratio and low NAA/(Cho + Cr) ratio in the right prefrontal lobe | n.a. | |||
| Arzy et al. (32) | Case-report | [18FDG]- PET | 30yo, woman 12 healthy controls |
FRA and LOI | None | Increased metabolism of the bilateral posterior parietal cortex (left predominance), and the left inferior frontal cortex. Decreased metabolism of the left inferior temporal cortex. |
n.a | |||
| Pathological condition | Resting-state neuroimaging studies |
Helmes et al. (34) | Case-report | SPECT | 54yo, woman | FRA and LOI | Active mild to severe major depressive disorder | Hypoperfusion of the left temporal pole and the left frontal pole, with cerebellar diaschisis | Few weeks (non-precisely specified) | |
| Markowitsch et al. (26) | Case-report | SPECT | 30yo, man | FRA | Possible past meningitis No psychiatry comorbidity |
Hypoperfusion of the right inferior frontal cortex and the right anterior temporal cortex | 3 weeks | |||
| Mitsui et al. (40) | Case-report | SPECT | 40yo, man | GARA | Active mild major depressive disorder | Decreased perfusion of the right ventral area of the medial temporal lobe | 2 weeks | |||
| Sellal et al. (37) | Case-report | SPECT | 33yo, man | FRA | None | Hypoperfusion of the right anterior temporal regions | Within first days | |||
| Stracciari et al. (38) | Case series | SPECT | Case 1: 20yo, man Case 2: 25yo, woman |
FRA in both cases | None | Case 1: left frontal hypoperfusion Case 2: right frontal hypoperfusion 11 other cases with normal SPECT and/or [18FDG]- PET |
Within first weeks | |||
| Task-performing neuroimaging studies | Retrograde memory (recognition) | Chechko et al. (20) | Case report | fMRI (familiarity task) | 41yo, woman | GARA | None | In the familiar condition, higher BOLD signal across the cuneus, the precuneus, bilateral middle occipital gyrus, bilateral middle temporal gyri, bilateral inferior parietal lobule, left fusiform gyrus, left orbitofrontal regions and bilateral amygdala/hippocampi complexes. | Within the first week | |
| Glisky et al. (21) | Case-report | fMRI (recognition of forgotten native language vs. non-words) | 33yo, man | GARA and LOI | None | Decreased BOLD signal in the striatum compared to controls. | Within first months | |||
| Hennig-Fast et al. (22) | Case-report | fMRI | 39yo, man | GARA | Previously treated alcohol dependence. Anxious-depressive and narcisistic personality strucutre |
Increased BOLD signal across the left anterior cingulate cortex, the left inferiorfrontal gyrus, the left inferior temporal gyrus, the right mesial temporal gyrus, the bilateral inferior occipital gyri, the left lingual gyrus, and the bilateral fusiform gyri. | Within first weeks | |||
| Markowitsch et al. (26) | Case-report | [15H20]-PET: 3 conditions [A: resting state; B: when hearing autobiographical sentences from before his fugue (=semantic); C: when |
37yo, man | GARA and LOI | None | Decreased rCBF in the right temporal and insular region | 8 months | |||
| Task-performing neuroimaging studies | Retrograde memory (recognition) | hearing autobiographical sentences from after his fugue (=episodic)] | ||||||||
| Yasuno et al. (31) | Case-report |
[15H2O]-PET (recognition of famous faces from amnestic period) |
33yo, woman | GARA | None | Increased rCBF in the left anterior cingulate cortex (BA 24 and 32), the caudate, the left putamen, the right medial prefrontal cortex (BA 6 and 8) and the right anterior medial region (including amygdala). Decreased rCBF in the left superior temporal cortex (BA 22 and 42), the right inferior parietal cortex (BA 40), the right anterior cingulate cortex (BA 32) and the right hippocampal region (BA 35 and 36). |
2 months | |||
| Arzy et al. (32) | Case-report | fMRI (discrimination of memories from amnestic and non-amnestic periods) | 30yo, woman | FRA and LOI | None | Increased BOLD signal of the posterior parietal cortex when seeing pictures from the manestic period | n.a. | |||
| Kikuchi et al. (35) | Case series | Functional MRI (face and name recognition tasks) | Case 1: 27yo, man Case 2: 52yo, man |
FRA (both cases) | Case 1: None Case 2: None |
Increased BOLD signal of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 9, 10 and 46), the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 46), the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (BA 47) and the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 47). Decreased BOLD signal of the left hippocampus |
n.a. | |||
| Yang et al. (39) | Case-report | Functional MRI (presentation of faces in 3 conditions: faces of people known from amnestic period, faces of people known from preserved period, unknown faces) | 22yo, woman | FRA | None | Decreased BOLD signal of the bilateral amygdalae, insulae hippocampi, and para-hippocampal gyri | n.a. | |||
| Retrograde memory (recollection) | Botzung et al. (33) | Case-report | fMRI (memory recollection from amnestic and non-amnestic time periods) using mental imagery | 38yo, woman | FRA | None | Decreased BOLD signal of the left parahippocampal gyrus (BA 35 and 36), the left anterior cingulate cortex (BA 24), the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 9) and right | Several years | ||
| Task-performing neuroimaging studies | middle lateral frontal gyrus (BA 6). Increased BOLD signal temporo-parieto-occipital loci (BA 7, 13, 18, 19, 21, 22, and 37) and cingular loci (BA 23) |
|||||||||
| Anterograde memory | Chechko et al. (20) | Case report | fMRI (associative face-name memory task) | 41yo, woman | GARA | None | During encoding, lower BOLD signal across the cingulate cortex, the superior medial frontal gyrus, the right ventrolateral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, the cerebellum, the bilateral parietal cortex (bilateral inferior parietal lobule, bilateral precuneus and right angular gyrus) and the right inferior and medial temporal gyri. During recognition, lower BOLD signal across the hippocampi and higher BOLD signal across the left superior frontal gyrus. |
Within the first week | ||
| Markowitsch et al. (26) | Case-report | [15H20] PET while retrieving memories but with lack of familiarity): 3 conditions (A: resting state; B: when hearing sentences heard 1 day before; C: when hearing sentences never heard before) | 30yo, man | FRA | Possible past meningitis No psychiatry comorbidity |
B–C comparison: Hyperperfusion of bilateral precuneus (BA 7), bilateral parietal regions (BA 39 and BA 40), right dorsal prefrontal region and right posterior cingulate cortex Hypoperfusion of the left middle and superior temporal gyri, cortical and subcortical (putamen) motor-related regions, left thalamus and right cerebellum |
6 months | |||
| After remission | Kitamura et al. (23) | Case-report | 11C WAY-100635 PET (5-HT 1A receptor) | 30yo, man | GARA | None | Increased 5-HT1A receptors binging of the patient in the right superior frontal cortex, right middle frontal cortex, left inferior frontal cortex in patient compared, left orbitofrontal cortex and bilateral inferior temporal cortices compared to HC after remission | 5 months | ||
| After remission | Kunii et al. (24) | Case-report | SPECT | 31yo, man | GARA | None | Progressively increased rCBF in prefrontal cortex during remission process | 1 month | ||
| Yasuno et al. (31) | Case-report |
[15H2O]-PET (recognition of famous faces from amnestic period) |
33yo, woman | GARA | None | Increased rCBF in the left temporo-occipital junction (BA19 and 37), the left anterior cingulate cortex (BA 24 and 32), the left cerebellum, the right medial and inferior prefrontal cortices (BA 6, 8 and 46), the middle temporal cortex (BA 21) and the right hippocampus (BA 35 and 36). Decreased rCBF in the right middle lateral prefrontal cortex (BA 9). |
12 months | |||
| Kikuchi et al. (35) | Case series | fMRI (face and name recognition tasks) | Case 1: 27yo, man | FRA (both cases) | None | Normalization of the pattern observed in acute phase | n.a. (partial remission) | |||
| Mitsui et al. (40) | Case-report | SPECT | 40yo, man | GARA | Active mild major depressive disorder | Normalization of the pattern observed in acute phase | 6 years | |||
| Sellal et al. (37) | Case-report | SPECT | 33yo, man | FRA | None | Normalization of the pattern observed in acute phase | n.a | |||
We identified 22 articles during the literature search. This table aims to gather the methodology and main features of each one of them. When a study could fit into two or more of the five categories (e.g., resting-state, recognition, recollection, anterograde memory, and remission), the description of the experimental design was separated into several parts.
AA, anterograde amnesia; FRA, focal retrograde amnesia; GARA, global autobiographical retrograde amnesia; LOI, loss of identity; MRI, magnetic resonnance imaging; MTR, magnetization transfer ratio; PET, positron emission tomography; SPECT, single-photon emission computed tomography.