Effects of Emotion on Episodic Memory in Typically Developing Children and Children With Williams-Beuren Syndrome
Condition: Mental Disorders
MeSH terms: Williams Syndrome; Mental Disorders
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      It's well established in the literature that emotional events are more likely to be
      remembered than neutral events. Although this Emotional Enhancement of Memory (EEM) has been
      well demonstrated in the adult literature, little is known about EEM for typically developing
      children and children with Williams-Beuren syndrome (WBS). In this study, two investigations
      will be conducted concomitantly: one of EEM in typically developing children and the other of
      EEM in children with WBS. For this purpose, three behavioral experiments will be established
      to investigate EEM in this two populations, with the first experiment also including
      electroencephalography measures. Performances of typically developing children will be
      compared to young adults, and performances of children with WBS will be compared to control
      children matched for mental age. Finally, this study aims to bring new knowledge about the
      interactions between emotion and memory in children, and to better understand cognitive
      functioning in children with WBS.
    

Detailed description: 
      The main objective of the present project is to characterize the emotional modulation of
      episodic memory in typically developing (TD) children and children with Williams-Beuren
      syndrome (WBS), by using behavioral and encephalography (EEG) measures. Better understanding
      of interaction between cognition and emotion in TD children and in WBS, and their
      specificities may increase our knowledge of normal and pathological neurodevelopment and lead
      to new treatment strategies in a case of WBS. Indeed, it is worth to note that WBS have a
      strong impact on cognitive, emotional and social aspects of children's behavior in daily
      life. It was widely shown in animal and human studies that emotionally charged information is
      better memorized and retrieved than neutral one.This emotional enhancement of memory (EEM)
      was largely demonstrated with young and older adults independently of the nature of stimuli,
      the type of memory, the type of memory task and the delay between encoding and retrieval .
      There is general agreement about emotional regulation of memory in adults, although there are
      several points currently investigated.

      Surprisingly, less is known about EEM in TD children and neurodevelopmental disorders such as
      WBS. Availability of cognitive resources and emotional regulation is supposed to have an
      impact on EEM. As both present specific patterns in TD children as compared to adults and in
      children with WBS , it could be expected that emotional regulation of memory process in TD
      children and WB presents also some specificities. These specificities are largely unknown,
      moreover if one considers that neither memory function nor emotional processing are fully
      developed in TD children.

      Few studies that investigated EEM in TD children reported rather contradictory results. Some
      of them observed EEM and others did not.In addition, most studies used only negative stimuli.
      Even less is known about EEM in children presenting neurodevelopmental pathologies as WBS,
      although memory deficit for non-emotional stimuli and deficit in processing of facial
      expressions, especially negative ones were observed in children with WBS. In addition, a
      significant dissociation was documented in children with WBS, concerning memory deficit, with
      auditive-verbal memory rather speared and visuo-spatial memory rather impaired .

      Thus, there is an important shortcoming in our understanding of emotional modulation of
      memory in children, both typically developing and those presenting WBS. With the present
      project, the investigators propose to fill this gap: two investigations will be conducted
      concomitantly, one of EEM in typically developing children and the other of EEM in children
      with WBS. Three behavioral experiments will be established to investigate EEM in this two
      populations, with the first experiment also including electroencephalography measures. These
      experiments will address the following specific questions: (1) is the EEM dependent of the
      stimulus type (images versus words)? - Experiment 1; (2) does the EEM exist in visuospatial
      episodic memory? - Experiment 2; (3) does the EEM exist for content and source memory -
      Experiment 3. Performance of typically developing children will be compared to young adults,
      and performance of children with WBS will be compared to control children matched for mental
      age.
    

Intervention name(s): Manipulation of valence and modality; Spatial and recognition memory; Source and content memory
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Behavioral; Behavioral
Intervention description(s): mnemic task with a phase of encoding negative, positive and neutral stimuli, will be proposed followed by an immediate recovery phase, composed of a recall task followed by a recognition task; mnemic task with a phase of encoding negative, positive and neutral stimuli, will be proposed followed by an immediate recovery phase, composed of a recall task followed by a recognition task; mnemic task with a phase of encoding negative, positive and neutral stimuli, will be proposed followed by an immediate recovery phase, composed of a recall task followed by a recognition task
Allocation: Non-Randomized
Intervention model: Factorial Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Other
Keywords: emotion; memory; Williams-Beuren syndrome