Studies of episodic memory problems in individuals with TBI, however, have found these problems to be persistent 4 and years after the trauma (Piolino et al., 2007). In summary, our study shows that patients with TBI exhibit impaired episodic memory as well as impaired episodic future thinking. The TBI patients presented even more pronounced difficulties in episodic event representations, when having to recall or imagine events further back or forth in time, indicating that mental

time travel into the distant past or future is a cognitively more demanding process. In our study, it seems likely that impaired executive functioning at least partly underlies the deficits in the ability to remember specific past events and imagine specific future events. Our finding that TBI patients show deficits regarding episodic future thinking may have several clinical implications. For example, selleck screening library difficulties with elaborating and maintaining a specific and detailed representations of future rewarding experiences could decrease anticipatory pleasure, thus leading to motivational deficits in pursuing

personal goals. Also, an impaired ability to simulate alternative plans of actions could severely disrupt adequate problem-solving, thus resulting in more inflexible and stimulus bound actions. Thus, one possible consequence of the observed impairment of episodic memory and episodic future thinking in TBI Pifithrin-�� in vitro patients may be diminished temporally extended self-awareness. The ability to become aware of past and possible future states of oneself is thought to ensure continuity and a sense of self through time. Disorders of episodic memory and episodic future thinking might at least in part explain the impaired awareness of deficits, which is a frequent consequence of TBI (McGlynn & Schacter, 1989) and which represents one of the biggest challenges in the rehabilitation process (Prigatano, 1999, 2005). We thank the patients for giving their time; the Regional Hospital Hammel Neurocenter and in particular Eva Lind for clinical assistance and helpful suggestions. We also thank Lise Fischer-Mogensen

and Nadia Nielsen for their help. This work was supported by the Danish National Research Foundation as well as the Danish Council for Independent Research for the Humanities. “
“Conversion disorder (CD) is selleck compound a condition where neurological symptoms, such as weakness or sensory disturbance, are unexplained by neurological disease and are presumed to be of psychological origin. Contemporary theories of the disorder generally propose dysfunctional frontal control of the motor or sensory systems. Classical (Freudian) psychodynamic theory holds that the memory of stressful life events is repressed. Little is known about the frontal (executive) function of these patients, or indeed their general neuropsychological profile, and psychodynamic theories have been largely untested.