The relationship between interactive-imagery instructions and association memory.

Interactive imagery, one of the most effective strategies for remembering pairs of words, involves asking participants to form mental images during study. We tested the hypothesis that the visual image is, in fact, responsible for its memory benefit. Neither subjectively reported vividness (all experiments) nor objective imagery skill (experiments 1 and 3) could explain the benefit of interactive imagery for cued recall.

Mnemonic scaffolds vary in effectiveness for serial recall.

Memory champions remember vast amounts of information in order and at first encounter by associating each study item to an anchor within a scaffold - a pre-learned, structured memory. The scaffold provides direct-access retrieval cues. Dominated by the familiar-route scaffold (Method of Loci), researchers have little insight into what characteristics of scaffolds make them effective, nor whether individual differences might play a role.

Clinical and Genetic Features in Patients With Reflex Bathing Epilepsy.

Objective: To describe the clinical and genetic findings in a cohort of individuals with bathing epilepsy, a rare form of reflex epilepsy.

Methods: We investigated by Sanger and targeted resequencing the gene in 12 individuals from 10 different families presenting with seizures triggered primarily by bathing or showering. An additional 12 individuals with hot-water epilepsy were also screened.

Chewing induced reflex seizures ("eating epilepsy") and eye closure sensitivity as a common feature in pediatric patients with SYNGAP1 mutations: Review of literature and report of 8 cases.

Purpose: Heterozygous SYNGAP1 gene mutations have been associated with several forms of idiopathic generalized epilepsy, autism spectrum disorders and delay of psychomotor development. We report eight patients with a SYNGAP1 mutation and chewing/eating induced reflex seizures as new phenotype and compare them to other patients with eating epilepsy and genetic mutations.

Methods: Presentation of clinical and anamnestic features and retrospective analysis of Video-EEG data of a 4 year old index patient with SYNGAP1 mutation and chewing /eating induced seizures.