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Articolo in rivista, 2019, ENG, 10.1038/s41598-019-53823-w

The spatiotemporal organization of episodic memory and its disruption in a neurodevelopmental disorder

Marilina Mastrogiuseppe, Natasha Bertelsen, Maria Francesca Bedeschi & Sang Ah Lee

1.Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy; Department of Human Studies, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy 2. Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy; Center for Neuroscience and Cognitive Systems (CNCS), Italian Institute of Technology, Rovereto, TN, Italy 3.Medical Genetic Unit, Woman-Child-Newborn Department, Fondazione IRCCS Ca 'Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan, Italy 4. Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Korea

Recent theories of episodic memory (EM) posit that the hippocampus provides a spatiotemporal framework necessary for representing events. If such theories hold true, then does the development of EM in children depend on the ability to first bind spatial and temporal information? And does this ability rely, at least in part, on normal hippocampal function? We investigated the development of EM in children 2-8 years of age (Study 1) and its impairment in Williams Syndrome, a genetic neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by visuospatial deficits and irregular hippocampal function, (Study 2) by implementing a nonverbal object-placement task that dissociates the what, where, and when components of EM. Consistent with the spatiotemporal-framework view of hippocampal EM, our results indicate that the binding of where and when in memory emerges earliest in development, around the age of 3, and is specifically impaired in WS. Space-time binding both preceded and was critical to full EM (what + where + when), and the successful association of objects to spatial locations seemed to mediate this developmental process.

Scientific reports (Nature Publishing Group)