Schedule of Events | Symposia

Sketchpad Series

Assessing Traumatic Brain Injury and its Impacts on Emotional Memory in Older Veterans

Poster Session D - Monday, March 31, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Heera Kamaraj^1,2 (hkamaraj@bu.edu), Kathy Xie^1,2, Yasemin Yilmaz^1,2, Brenna Hagan^1,2, Emily Waksow^1,2, Andrew E. Budson^1,2, Katherine W. Turk^1,2; ¹Center for Translational Cognitive Neuroscience, VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, MA 02130, USA, ²Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA 02118, USA

Introduction: Imaging studies show increased amygdala connectivity in individuals with moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI) and depression, as well as Veterans with mild TBI and PTSD. This, alongside the amygdala's key role in retaining negative experiences, underscores the need to study TBI's impact on emotional memory. While TBI is linked to impaired word recall, valence-specific effects on memory - particularly the distinctions between familiarity and recollection for positive versus negative stimuli - remain underexplored. Our research focuses on understanding valence-specific memory differences in Veterans with TBI. Methods: To date, participants include 19 Veterans with TBI, 12 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 12 healthy controls. Participants completed an emotional memory task: studying 60 words (20 neutral, 20 positive, 20 negative). Recognition of old and new words were rated on a 1 - 6 Likert scale (1 = absolutely sure the item is new, 6 = absolutely sure it is old) at test. Familiarity and recollection assessments will be measured using receiver-operator characteristic curves. Additional measures include the Ohio State University TBI Identification Method, mood, PTSD, and depression evaluations. Results: We hypothesize that individuals with TBI and age-matched healthy controls will demonstrate higher familiarity and recollection for words with negative valence than positive valence, with larger differences in the TBI group. The MCI group is expected to have reduced overall recollection and familiarity, but minimal valence-related differences. Conclusion: This study highlights the effects of TBI on valence-specific memory processes, informing future research on the underlying neural mechanisms of recollection and familiarity.

Topic Area: EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions