Autobiographical memory in multiple sclerosis.

Studies have consistently found that patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) are impaired on tests of anterograde memory, but the status of remote memory in MS remains unclear. To better understand remote memory in MS we administered the Autobiographical Memory Interview (AMI) to 44 MS patients and 19 normal controls matched for age, education, and gender. Additionally, a shortened version of the Famous Faces Test, a test of recall of past U.S. presidents, and a 14-word learning list were administered. Patients performed significantly lower than controls on the learning list and Famous Faces Test, but not on recall of past presidents. On the AMI, patients were significantly impaired on recall of semantic but not of episodic memories. These results indicate that MS patients exhibit retrograde amnesia that cannot be attributed to anterograde memory deficits or lack of exposure to task-relevant information.