Level of processing’s effect on episodic retrieval following traumatic brain injury in the elderly: An event-related potential study

Abstract

Individuals who have sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) can suffer from episodic memory impairments. Until now, the neural correlates underlying episodic retrieval in individuals with TBI remained scarce, particularly in older adults. We aimed to fill this gap by recording event-related potentials during an old/new episodic recognition task in 26 older adults, 13 healthy and 13 with TBI. The task manipulated the level of processing in encoding with the use of semantic organizational strategies (deep guided, deep self-guided, and shallow encoding). For all encoding conditions, behavioral data analyses on the discrimination rate indicated that older adults with TBI were globally impaired compared with healthy older adults. The electrophysiological results indicated that the left-parietal effect was larger in the deep guided condition than in the shallow condition. In addition, the results show that the mid-frontal and left-parietal positive old/new effects were absent in both groups. The main findings are the observation, in the control group only, of an early frontal old/new effect (P200; 150–300 ms) and of a late frontal old/new effect on the left hemisphere, only in the Spontaneous condition. Together, results suggest an impairment of the allocation of attentional resources and working memory necessary for retrieving and monitoring items in the elderly with TBI.