Assessing Episodic and Semantic Autobiographical Recall in Healthy Older APOE ε4 Carriers

Sacripante, Riccardo and James, Tabitha and Melega, Greta and Lancelotte, Fiona and Johnen, Ann-Kathrin and Saquisili, Christian Lopez and Lidström, Andreas and Niu, Ligzi and Goddard, Kayleigh and Fountain, Samuel J. and Clark, Ian and Blake, Joshua and Hornberger, Michael and Levine, Brian and Renoult, Louis (2025) Assessing Episodic and Semantic Autobiographical Recall in Healthy Older APOE ε4 Carriers. Psychology and Aging. ISSN 0882-7974 (In Press)

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Abstract

The APOE ε4 gene is associated with increased risk of developing sporadic Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Several studies have focused on declarative memory, where episodic memory deficits are reported in ε4 carriers, while semantic memory has received much less attention. To clarify whether the impact of APOE ε4 on declarative memory is specific to episodic memory, we administered a novel measure of autobiographical memory, the Semantic Autobiographical Interview (SAI). Thirty-eight healthy older adults were recruited, 19 ε4 carriers and 19 non-carriers, matched in age, education, and gender. The groups did not significantly differ in any neuropsychological tests except for recognition memory, where ε4 carriers showed reduced performance. On the original Autobiographical Interview (AI), results revealed a reduced number of target details in carriers. Together, these results suggest a reduction of episodic specificity in ε4 carriers. In contrast, carriers had very similar semantic production to non-carriers, whether it was for off-task semantic details in the AI, or on-task general and personal semantic details produced in the SAI. These results suggest that older adults retain the gist of their personal experience and that the semanticization of their autobiographical narratives is robust and less sensitive to risk for AD than episodic memory.

Item Type:	Article
Dates:	Date Event 7 November 2025 Accepted
Uncontrolled Keywords:	autobiographical memory, episodic memory, personal semantic memory, APOE, aging
Subjects:	CAH04 - psychology > CAH04-01 - psychology > CAH04-01-01 - psychology (non-specific)
Divisions:	Life and Health Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User:	Gemma Tonks
Date Deposited:	26 Nov 2025 15:29
Last Modified:	26 Nov 2025 15:29
URI:	https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/16734

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