Accelerated forgetting in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
Research type
Research Study
Full title
An Investigation of Accelerated Forgetting in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
IRAS ID
160936
Contact name
Jonathan Evans
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 9 months, 1 days
Research summary
We aim to investigate the difficulties that individuals with epilepsy have in forming long term memories. Previous research has shown that individuals with a diagnosis of epilepsy can often remember information given to them, even after a short break, typically of around 30 minutes. However some people with epilepsy seem to show more forgetting than people without epilepsy over a period of days or weeks. This phenomenon is referred to as accelerated forgetting. One possible explanation for this accelerated forgetting is that seizure activity that may not be observable (i.e. is not severe enough to cause actual epileptic seizures) is responsible for disrupting memories.
This study will investigate this further by asking individuals with epilepsy to perform some memory tasks on two occasions with a break of 5 days between them. Over this 5 day break, the participants will have their brain activity recorded, which will show us how much abnormal electrical activity is being produced. We predict that individuals who have more abnormal electrical activity over the 5 day break will perform worse on the second round of memory tasks showing higher rates of forgetting. We think that this is because the electrical activity is disrupting the brains ability to store these memories, and so the information is more easily lost.
We hope that this study will help us to better understand epilepsy and why there is a trend for individuals to forget information at a faster rate in comparison to people without epilepsy. We hope that this understanding will allow individuals who are diagnosed with epilepsy to then better understand their condition and the possible side effects that may occur, and enable them to put into place strategies to help them cope effectively with their memory difficulties.
REC name
West of Scotland REC 3
REC reference
14/WS/1138
Date of REC Opinion
11 Dec 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion