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Updated: Apr 12, 2026

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Neural Correlates of Emotional Autobiographical Recollection
Published on: August 26, 2011
Emotional specificities of autobiographical memory after breast cancer diagnosis
Nastassja Morel1, Jacques Dayan2, Pascale Piolino3
1U1077, INSERM, Caen, France; U1077, University of Caen Lower Normandy, Caen, France; U1077, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Caen, France; U1077, Caen University Hospital, Caen, France.
Abstract:
Cancer involves stressful events. One aspect of cognition that is impacted by stress is episodic autobiographical memory (EAM). EAM is intimately linked to self-representation. Some studies have revealed impairment of EAM in patients with breast cancer in remission. Yet, these studies failed to differentiate between the influence of adjuvant treatments and that of psychosocial factors. We therefore assessed the psychological impact of breast cancer diagnosis on EAM and self-representation profiles prior to any adjuvant treatment. Patients newly diagnosed with breast cancer (n=31) and women without any history of cancer (n=49) were compared on state anxiety, EAM and its emotional characteristics, and self-representations. The most anxious patients retrieved fewer emotional details for memories than the controls, and had lower self-representation scores than the least anxious patients, who had no deficits in emotional detail retrieval. Our results revealed distinct EAM profiles for patients, reflecting two contrasting modes of coping with breast cancer.
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