This thesis abstract is about the effect of Olfactory stimulation on the recalls in Alzheimer Disease (AD).
The Alzheimer’s disease is mostly characterized by memory trouble, more specially the autobiographical memory. This disease can be explained by a difficulty to recall memories. Tulving (1972, 1983), and after Conway and Pleydell-Pearce (2000) described the autobiographical memory functionality by two components: the episodic part and the semantic part. First, the semantic part is the place were all our knowledge about us, about world and all it surround us is stored. When we talk about semantic aspect of our autobiographical memory, it is the generality of our recall. Whereas, the episodic component is the part of autobiographical memory where we store the contextual details, the phenomenological reactions in links with memories. It is the part which enables us to relive the memory as we were here and to give example the most precise we can.
In the Alzheimer’s Disease, there is a retrograde amnesia: the autobiographical memories are affected and it provokes a difficulty to recall. The memories are disappearing sequentially from the most recent to the older ones. In the AD, this is the episodic part of autobiographical memory which is the most affected (Lalanne and Piolino, 2013). So, the AD patients are losing gradually the specificity of their memories (contextual, phenomenological, the revival etc.). However, the same authors showed in 2013 that exists a cerebral plasticity in the AD patient, so it is important not to give up and continue to stimulate their memory.
Nowadays, many researches about sensorial stimulations were studied. We think that it can be interesting to stimulate the memory with olfactory stimulation because the olfactory system is located just one synapse next to the hippocampic area (which is the center of memory) (Larsson, Wilander, Karlsson & Arshamian, 2014). The last survey conducted by El Haj et al. (2017) was about olfactory stimulation, it shows that there is an effect on the memories recalls in the AD because the recalls are more specific in the olfactory situation than in the musical situation and the situation without odor.
That’s why the aim of our study is to examine if the olfactory stimulation can have an effect on recalls, but more particularly on the recent memories in the AD. To test if the recent recall will be better in the olfactory stimulation, we decided to analyze two different modalities: the specificity of the recall and the number of memories remembered. During the experimentation, we asked to healthy older people and AD patient if they can give us a memory during two minutes about their childhood, one about their adulthood and one recent memory. For any different period, we asked twice the question because we wanted to examine a difference between an olfactory stimulation and a situation without olfactory stimulation. So, we began with the three periods of recall without odor and then we asked the same question with the odor of lavender.
The results of our survey will be available in January, 2020.
Key-words:
Alzheimer Disease, Autobiographical memory, Olfactory stimulation, Recent recall, Specificity
| Bibliographic References |
Conway, M. A., & Pleydell-Pearce C. W. (2000). The construction of autobiographical memories in the self- memory system. Psychological Revew, 107, 261-88.
EL Haj, M., Gandolphe, M. C., Gallouj, K., Kapogiannis, D. & Antoine, P. (2017). Frome Nose to Memory : The Involuntary Nature of Odor-evoked Autobiographical Memories in Alzheimer disease. Chemical Senses, 43, 27-34.
Lalanne, J. & Piolino, P. (2013). Prise en charge des troubles de la mémoire autobiographique dans la maladie d’Alzheimer du stade débutant au stade sévère : revue de la littérature et nouvelles perspectives. Geriatrie Psychologie Neuropsychiatrie du Veillissement, 11(3), 275-285.doi:10.1684/pnv.2013.0422.
Larsson M, Willander J, Karlsson K, & Arshamian A. (2014). Olfactory LOVER: behavioral and neural correlates of autobiographical odor memory. Frontiers in Psychology. 5, 312. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00312.
Tulving, E. (1983). Éléments de mémoire épisodique. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Tulving, E. (1972). Mémoire épisodique et sémantique . Organisation de la mémoire, New York: Academic Press, 381–403.