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Signs of enhanced formation of gist memory in children with autism spectrum disorder – a study of memory functions of sleep
Author(s) -
Kurz EvaMaria,
Conzelmann Annette,
Barth Gottfried Maria,
Hepp Lisa,
Schenk Damaris,
Renner Tobias J.,
Born Jan,
Zinke Katharina
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/jcpp.13048
Subject(s) - psychology , autism spectrum disorder , gist , sleep (system call) , autism , developmental psychology , memory disorder , cognitive disorder , audiology , cognition , psychiatry , medicine , cognitive impairment , operating system , stromal cell , pathology , computer science
Background Autism spectrum disorder ( ASD ) is characterized by impaired cognitive and social skills, including emotional dysregulation, and symptoms have been suspected to partly arise from impaired formation of memory representations regulating these behaviours. Sleep, which is subjectively impaired in ASD , is critical for forming long‐term memories and abstracted gist‐based representations. We expected a generally reduced memory benefit from sleep in children with ASD , and a diminished enhancement of gist representations, in particular. Methods We compared effects of sleep on memory consolidation between boys (9–12 years) with ASD ( n = 21) and typically developing ( TD , n = 20) boys, matched for age and IQ , in a within‐subjects crossover design. We employed an emotional picture recognition task and the Deese–Roediger–McDermott ( DRM ) word list task for assessing gist memory formation in the emotional and nonemotional domain, respectively. Learning took place before retention intervals of nocturnal sleep and daytime wakefulness, and retrieval was tested afterwards. Results Surprisingly, on the DRM task, children with ASD showed an enhanced sleep‐dependent formation of gist‐based memory (i.e. more recall of ‘critical lure words’ after sleep compared to wakefulness) than TD children, with this effect occurring on top of a diminished veridical word memory. On the picture recognition task, children with ASD also showed a stronger emotional enhancement in memory (i.e. relatively better memory for negative than neutral pictures) than TD children, with this enhancement occurring independent of sleep. Sleep polysomnography was remarkably comparable between groups. Conclusions Children with ASD show well‐preserved sleep‐dependent memory consolidation. Enhanced gist memory formation in these children might reflect a compensatory response for impairments at earlier stages of memory processing, that is during encoding.