Remote memory for visuospatial information was studied in patients with Huntington’s disease (HD) using a recently developed test of geographical knowledge. When asked to locate places on a map of the region of the U.S. in which they were born and raised or on a map of California where they currently resided, the HD patients performed less accurately than controls, and the magnitude of their impairment was equally severe on both regional maps. The “flat” temporal gradient of the HD patients’ retrograde amnesia for visuospatial information was similar in form to their performance in a previous study in which remote memory was measured using identification of famous faces and recall of public events. A second experiment demonstrated that visuo-motor impairments could not account for the HD patients’ deficits in geographical knowledge.
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