Leann, KL; (2008) Explaining natural variability in human memory with genes and brain-structure. Doctoral thesis , UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of candidate genes and brain structure on memory performance. A foreign word-pair association paradigm was designed to provide several dissociable measures of different memory processes. Subjects deeply encoded foreign word pairs with a picture-word matching task. They were tested at five time points over one week which provided measures of learning and forgetting rates, dissociable between measures. Performance was evaluated with respect to the genotype of three candidate genes brain volume of memory-related structures evaluated by VBM and metamemory assessments from a questionnaire. The expected trends of influence of these genes on specific memory processes were observed but failed to reach significance. Temporal influences were not dissociable between genes as hypothesized. We attribute our overall lack of significant correlations to such few participants. Significant findings were found by VBM between parahippocampal gyrus volume, BDNF genotype, and working memory performance. Despite the lack of many significant findings, the consistent trends between genotype, metamemory, and memory performance indicate worthwhile directions of investigation. Moreover, explaining variability in memory performance proved to be accessible through genotypic and VBM analysis.

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