Matthew Dennis Grilli
- Associate Professor, Psychology
- Director, Clinical Training-Psychology
- Associate Professor, Evelyn F McKnight Brain Institute
- Associate Professor, Cognitive Science - GIDP
- Associate Professor, BIO5 Institute
- Associate Professor, Neurology
- Member of the Graduate Faculty
Contact
- (520) 621-7447
- Psychology, Rm. 312
- Tucson, AZ 85721
- mdgrilli@arizona.edu
Awards
- Junior Investigator Recognition, Arizona Alzheimer’s Disease Core Center
- Fall 2019
- Council of Graduate Schools Dissertation Award
- Council of Graduate Schools, Fall 2014 (Award Nominee)
- Early Investigator in Science
- Forbe's Magazine 30 under 30, Spring 2014 (Award Nominee)
- College of Science Scholar of the Year
- College of Science, University of Arizona, Summer 2012
- Human Development & Aging Fellowship
- Heidelberg University, Germany, Winter 2011
- Arizona Neuropsychology Society Research Award
- Arizona Neuropsychology Society, Spring 2011
- Poster Merit Recognition
- International Neuropsychological Society, Spring 2009
- Community Outreach Fellowship
- Psychology Department, University of Arizona, Winter 2008
Licensure & Certification
- Clinical Psychologist, Arizona Board of Psychologist Examiners (2016)
Interests
No activities entered.
Courses
2024-25 Courses
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Clinical Neuropsychology
PSY 694D (Spring 2025) -
Directed Research
PSYS 492 (Spring 2025) -
Dissertation
PSY 920 (Spring 2025) -
Get Real: Cognition and You
PSY 425 (Spring 2025) -
Honors Thesis
PSY 498H (Spring 2025) -
Senior Capstone
NROS 498 (Spring 2025) -
Directed Research
NROS 392 (Fall 2024) -
Directed Research
NROS 492 (Fall 2024) -
Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Fall 2024) -
Directed Research
PSYS 492 (Fall 2024) -
Dissertation
PSY 920 (Fall 2024) -
Honors Directed Research
PSYS 492H (Fall 2024) -
Honors Thesis
PSY 498H (Fall 2024) -
Independent Study
PSY 399 (Fall 2024) -
Independent Study
PSY 499 (Fall 2024) -
Research
PSY 900 (Fall 2024) -
Senior Capstone
NROS 498 (Fall 2024)
2023-24 Courses
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Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Summer I 2024) -
Directed Research
PSYS 492 (Summer I 2024) -
Independent Study
PSY 499 (Summer I 2024) -
Clinical Neuropsychology
PSY 694D (Spring 2024) -
Cognt+Affct Bases/Behav
PSY 696C (Spring 2024) -
Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Spring 2024) -
Directed Research
PSYS 492 (Spring 2024) -
Dissertation
PSY 920 (Spring 2024) -
Get Real: Cognition and You
PSY 425 (Spring 2024) -
Honors Directed Research
PSYS 392H (Spring 2024) -
Honors Thesis
NROS 498H (Spring 2024) -
Honors Thesis
PSIO 498H (Spring 2024) -
Independent Study
PSY 299 (Spring 2024) -
Independent Study
PSY 399 (Spring 2024) -
Independent Study
PSY 499 (Spring 2024) -
Clinical Neuropsychology
PSY 694D (Fall 2023) -
Cognt+Affct Bases/Behav
PSY 696C (Fall 2023) -
Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Fall 2023) -
Directed Research
PSYS 492 (Fall 2023) -
Dissertation
PSY 920 (Fall 2023) -
Honors Thesis
NROS 498H (Fall 2023) -
Honors Thesis
PSY 498H (Fall 2023) -
Independent Study
NROS 199 (Fall 2023) -
Independent Study
PSY 299 (Fall 2023) -
Research
PSY 900 (Fall 2023) -
Senior Capstone
NROS 498 (Fall 2023)
2022-23 Courses
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Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Summer I 2023) -
Clinical Neuropsychology
PSY 694D (Spring 2023) -
Directed Research
NSCS 392 (Spring 2023) -
Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Spring 2023) -
Directed Research
PSYS 492 (Spring 2023) -
Dissertation
PSY 920 (Spring 2023) -
Get Real: Cognition and You
PSY 425 (Spring 2023) -
Honors Independent Study
PSY 399H (Spring 2023) -
Honors Thesis
MIC 498H (Spring 2023) -
Honors Thesis
NSCS 498H (Spring 2023) -
Honors Thesis
PSIO 498H (Spring 2023) -
Independent Study
PSY 299 (Spring 2023) -
Independent Study
PSY 499 (Spring 2023) -
Research
PSY 900 (Spring 2023) -
Clinical Neuropsychology
PSY 694D (Fall 2022) -
Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Fall 2022) -
Directed Research
PSYS 492 (Fall 2022) -
Dissertation
PSY 920 (Fall 2022) -
Honors Independent Study
PSY 399H (Fall 2022) -
Honors Thesis
MIC 498H (Fall 2022) -
Honors Thesis
NSCS 498H (Fall 2022) -
Honors Thesis
PSIO 498H (Fall 2022) -
Human Brain-Behav Relatn
PSY 504A (Fall 2022) -
Independent Study
PSY 399 (Fall 2022) -
Independent Study
PSY 499 (Fall 2022) -
Master's Report
PSY 909 (Fall 2022) -
Research
PSY 900 (Fall 2022)
2021-22 Courses
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Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Summer I 2022) -
Directed Research
PSYS 492 (Summer I 2022) -
Independent Study
PSY 399 (Summer I 2022) -
Clinical Neuropsychology
PSY 694D (Spring 2022) -
Directed Research
ACBS 492 (Spring 2022) -
Directed Research
NSCS 392 (Spring 2022) -
Directed Research
NSCS 492 (Spring 2022) -
Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Spring 2022) -
Directed Research
PSYS 492 (Spring 2022) -
Dissertation
PSY 920 (Spring 2022) -
Honors Independent Study
PSY 399H (Spring 2022) -
Honors Thesis
PSY 498H (Spring 2022) -
Independent Study
PSY 399 (Spring 2022) -
Research
PSY 900 (Spring 2022) -
Clinical Neuropsychology
PSY 694D (Fall 2021) -
Cognt+Affct Bases/Behav
PSY 696C (Fall 2021) -
Directed Research
ACBS 492 (Fall 2021) -
Directed Research
NSCS 392 (Fall 2021) -
Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Fall 2021) -
Directed Research
PSYS 492 (Fall 2021) -
Dissertation
PSY 920 (Fall 2021) -
Honors Directed Research
PSYS 492H (Fall 2021) -
Honors Thesis
PSY 498H (Fall 2021) -
Independent Study
PSY 299 (Fall 2021) -
Independent Study
PSY 399 (Fall 2021) -
Research
PSY 900 (Fall 2021)
2020-21 Courses
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Directed Research
NSCS 492 (Summer I 2021) -
Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Summer I 2021) -
Directed Research
PSYS 492 (Summer I 2021) -
Clinical Neuropsychology
PSY 694D (Spring 2021) -
Cognt+Affct Bases/Behav
PSY 696C (Spring 2021) -
Directed Research
NSCS 392 (Spring 2021) -
Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Spring 2021) -
Directed Research
PSYS 492 (Spring 2021) -
Dissertation
PSY 920 (Spring 2021) -
Honors Directed Research
PSYS 392H (Spring 2021) -
Honors Thesis
NSCS 498H (Spring 2021) -
Honors Thesis
PSY 498H (Spring 2021) -
Independent Study
NSCS 499 (Spring 2021) -
Independent Study
PSIO 399 (Spring 2021) -
Independent Study
PSY 199 (Spring 2021) -
Independent Study
PSY 399 (Spring 2021) -
Master's Report
PSY 909 (Spring 2021) -
Research
PSY 900 (Spring 2021) -
Clinical Neuropsychology
PSY 694D (Fall 2020) -
Directed Research
NSCS 492 (Fall 2020) -
Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Fall 2020) -
Directed Research
PSYS 492 (Fall 2020) -
Dissertation
PSY 920 (Fall 2020) -
Get Real: Cognition and You
PSY 425 (Fall 2020) -
Honors Thesis
NSCS 498H (Fall 2020) -
Honors Thesis
PSY 498H (Fall 2020) -
Independent Study
NSCS 499 (Fall 2020) -
Independent Study
PSIO 399 (Fall 2020) -
Research
PSY 900 (Fall 2020)
2019-20 Courses
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Clinical Neuropsychology
PSY 694D (Spring 2020) -
Directed Research
NSCS 492 (Spring 2020) -
Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Spring 2020) -
Directed Research
PSYS 492 (Spring 2020) -
Dissertation
PSY 920 (Spring 2020) -
Honors Independent Study
PSY 399H (Spring 2020) -
Honors Thesis
NSCS 498H (Spring 2020) -
Independent Study
PSIO 399 (Spring 2020) -
Independent Study
PSIO 499 (Spring 2020) -
Independent Study
PSY 199 (Spring 2020) -
Independent Study
PSY 399 (Spring 2020) -
Independent Study
PSY 499 (Spring 2020) -
Mind and Brain
PSY 300 (Spring 2020) -
Research
PSY 900 (Spring 2020) -
Clinical Neuropsychology
PSY 694D (Fall 2019) -
Directed Research
NSCS 392 (Fall 2019) -
Directed Research
NSCS 492 (Fall 2019) -
Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Fall 2019) -
Directed Research
PSYS 492 (Fall 2019) -
Dissertation
PSY 920 (Fall 2019) -
Honors Thesis
NSCS 498H (Fall 2019) -
Independent Study
PSIO 399 (Fall 2019) -
Independent Study
PSIO 499 (Fall 2019) -
Independent Study
PSY 399 (Fall 2019) -
Independent Study
PSY 499 (Fall 2019) -
Master's Report
PSY 909 (Fall 2019) -
Research
PSY 900 (Fall 2019)
2018-19 Courses
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Directed Research
NSCS 392 (Spring 2019) -
Dissertation
PSY 920 (Spring 2019) -
Get Real: Cognition and You
PSY 425 (Spring 2019) -
Honors Thesis
NSCS 498H (Spring 2019) -
Honors Thesis
PSY 498H (Spring 2019) -
Independent Study
PSY 199 (Spring 2019) -
Independent Study
PSY 399 (Spring 2019) -
Independent Study
PSY 499 (Spring 2019) -
Master's Report
PSY 909 (Spring 2019) -
Research
PSY 900 (Spring 2019) -
Clinical Neuropsychology
PSY 694D (Fall 2018) -
Directed Research
NSCS 392 (Fall 2018) -
Directed Research
NSCS 492 (Fall 2018) -
Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Fall 2018) -
Honors Thesis
NSCS 498H (Fall 2018) -
Honors Thesis
PSY 498H (Fall 2018) -
Human Brain-Behav Relatn
PSY 504A (Fall 2018) -
Independent Study
PSY 399 (Fall 2018) -
Independent Study
PSY 499 (Fall 2018) -
Research
PSY 900 (Fall 2018)
2017-18 Courses
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Clinical Neuropsychology
PSY 694D (Spring 2018) -
Directed Research
PSYS 492 (Spring 2018) -
Honors Directed Research
PSYS 392H (Spring 2018) -
Honors Independent Study
NSCS 499H (Spring 2018) -
Honors Independent Study
PSY 399H (Spring 2018) -
Honors Thesis
PSY 498H (Spring 2018) -
Independent Study
NSCS 299 (Spring 2018) -
Independent Study
PSY 399 (Spring 2018) -
Independent Study
PSY 499 (Spring 2018) -
Mind and Brain
PSY 300 (Spring 2018) -
Clinical Neuropsychology
PSY 694D (Fall 2017) -
Cognt+Affct Bases/Behav
PSY 696C (Fall 2017) -
Directed Research
NSCS 392 (Fall 2017) -
Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Fall 2017) -
Directed Research
PSYS 492 (Fall 2017) -
Honors Thesis
PSY 498H (Fall 2017) -
Human Brain-Behav Relatn
PSY 504A (Fall 2017) -
Independent Study
NSCS 299 (Fall 2017) -
Independent Study
PSY 399 (Fall 2017) -
Independent Study
PSY 499 (Fall 2017) -
Independent Study
PSY 599 (Fall 2017) -
Research
PSY 900 (Fall 2017)
2016-17 Courses
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Clinical Neuropsychology
PSY 694D (Spring 2017) -
Cognt+Affct Bases/Behav
PSY 696C (Spring 2017) -
Directed Research
PSYS 392 (Spring 2017) -
Honors Independent Study
PSY 399H (Spring 2017) -
Honors Thesis
PSY 498H (Spring 2017) -
Independent Study
PSY 299 (Spring 2017) -
Independent Study
PSY 399 (Spring 2017) -
Independent Study
PSY 499 (Spring 2017) -
Master's Report
PSY 909 (Spring 2017) -
Mind and Brain
PSY 300 (Spring 2017) -
Research
PSY 900 (Spring 2017) -
Clinical Neuropsychology
PSY 694D (Fall 2016) -
Honors Independent Study
PSY 399H (Fall 2016) -
Honors Thesis
PSY 498H (Fall 2016) -
Human Brain-Behav Relatn
PSY 504A (Fall 2016) -
Independent Study
PSY 399 (Fall 2016) -
Independent Study
PSY 499 (Fall 2016) -
Research
PSY 900 (Fall 2016)
2015-16 Courses
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Clinical Neuropsychology
PSY 694D (Spring 2016) -
Cognt+Affct Bases/Behav
PSY 696C (Spring 2016) -
Honors Independent Study
PSY 299H (Spring 2016) -
Honors Independent Study
PSY 399H (Spring 2016) -
Independent Study
PSY 399 (Spring 2016)
Scholarly Contributions
Chapters
- Grilli, M. D., & Ryan, T. L. (2020). Autobiographical Memory and the Self-Concept. In The Neuroscience of Enduring Change.
- Andrews-Hanna, J. R., Grilli, M. D., & Irish, M. (2019). A review and reappraisal of the default network in normal aging and dementia. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology. doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.384
- Grilli, M. D., & Verfaellie, M. (2017). Blast Injuries. In Neuropsychological Rehabilitation: An International Handbook.More infoThis is an invited chapter on the neuropsychological outcomes and treatment options for individuals with traumatic brain injury secondary to blast for an edited book titled "Neuropsychological Rehabilitation: An International Handbook."Chapter abstract: Blast exposure can result in a variety of frequently co-morbid chronic injuries, including traumatic brain injury, posttraumatic stress disorder, and pain. Given the nature of these co-morbidities, it is not surprising that many individuals with blast exposure experience impairment in cognition and psychosocial functioning. We review the nature and potential causes of these cognitive and functional impairments, with an emphasis on how such understanding can inform a clinician’s diagnostic and treatment approach. We then discuss neuropsychological rehabilitation treatment planning in the context of blast injuries.
Journals/Publications
- Matijevic, S., Andrews-Hanna, J. R., Wank, A. A., Ryan, L., & Grilli, M. D. (2022). Individual differences in the relationship between episodic detail generation and resting state functional connectivity vary with age. Neuropsychologia, 166, 108138.More infoThe ability to generate episodic details while recollecting autobiographical events is believed to depend on a collection of brain regions that form a posterior medial network (PMN). How age-related differences in episodic detail generation relate to the PMN, however, remains unclear. The present study sought to examine individual differences, and the role of age, in PMN resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) associations with episodic detail generation. Late middle-aged and older adults (N = 41, ages 52-81), and young adults (N = 21, ages 19-35) were asked to describe recent personal events, and these memory narratives were coded for episodic, semantic and 'miscellaneous' details. Independent components analysis and regions-of-interest analyses were used to assess rsFC within the PMN separately for anterior connections (hippocampal and medial prefrontal) and posterior connections (hippocampal, parahippocampal and parieto-occipital), as these connections purportedly serve different functional roles in episodic detail generation. Compared to younger adults, older adults produced memory narratives with lower episodic specificity (ratio of episodic:total details) and a greater amount of semantic detail. Among the older adults, episodic detail amounts and episodic specificity were reduced with increasing age. There were no significant age differences in PMN rsFC. Stronger anterior PMN rsFC was related to lower episodic detail in the older adult group, but not in the young. Among the older adults, increasing age brought on an association between increased anterior PMN rsFC and reduced episodic specificity. In contrast, increasing age brought on an association between increased posterior PMN rsFC and increased semantic detail. The present study provides evidence that functional connectivity within the PMN, particularly anterior PMN, tracks individual differences in the amount of episodic details retrieved by older adults. Furthermore, these brain-behavior relationships appear to be age-specific, indicating that some process within aging alters the nature of how anterior PMN rsFC and episodic detail relate to each other. Whether this process entails an age-related loss of integrity to the PMN, or an age-related shift toward semantic retrieval, remains to be determined.
- Wank, A. A., Robertson, A., Thayer, S. C., Verfaellie, M., Rapcsak, S. Z., & Grilli, M. D. (2022). Autobiographical memory unknown: Pervasive autobiographical memory loss encompassing personality trait knowledge in an individual with medial temporal lobe amnesia. Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 147, 41-57.More infoAutobiographical memory consists of distinct memory types varying from highly abstract to episodic. Self trait knowledge, which is considered one of the more abstract types of autobiographical memory, is thought to rely on regions of the autobiographical memory neural network implicated in schema representation, including the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and critically, not the medial temporal lobes. The current case study introduces an individual who experienced bilateral posterior cerebral artery strokes resulting in extensive medial temporal lobe damage with sparing of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Interestingly, in addition to severe retrograde and anterograde episodic and autobiographical fact amnesia, this individual's self trait knowledge was impaired for his current and pre-morbid personality traits. Yet, further assessment revealed that this individual had preserved conceptual knowledge for personality traits, could reliably and accurately rate another person's traits, and could access his own self-concept in a variety of ways. In addition to autobiographical memory loss, he demonstrated impairment on non-personal semantic memory tests, most notably on tests requiring retrieval of unique knowledge. This rare case of amnesia suggests a previously unreported role for the medial temporal lobes in self trait knowledge, which we propose reflects the critical role of this neural region in the storage and retrieval of personal semantics that are experience-near, meaning autobiographical facts grounded in spatiotemporal contexts.
- Andrews-Hanna, J. R., & Grilli, M. D. (2021). Mapping the imaginative mind: Charting new paths forward. Current directions in psychological science, 30(1), 82-89.More infoThe fields of psychology and neuroscience are in the midst of an explosion of research seeking to understand human - the ability to form thoughts and mental images that stretch beyond what is currently available to the senses. Imaginative thought is proving to be remarkably diverse, capturing the capacity to recall past experiences, consider what lies ahead, and understand others' minds, in addition to other forms of creative and spontaneous thinking. In the first part of this article, we introduce an integrative framework that attempts to explain how components of a core brain network facilitate interacting features of imagination that we refer to as the "mind's eye" and "mind's mind." We then highlight three emerging research directions that could inform our understanding of how imagination arises and unfolds in everyday life.
- Grilli, M. D., McVeigh, K. S., Hakim, Z. M., Wank, A. A., Getz, S. J., Levin, B. E., Ebner, N. C., & Wilson, R. C. (2021). Is this phishing? Older age is associated with greater difficulty discriminating between safe and malicious emails. The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences.More infoAs our social worlds become increasingly digitally connected, so too has concern about older adults falling victim to "phishing" emails, which attempt to deceive a person into identity theft and fraud. In the present study, we investigated whether older age is associated with differences in perceived suspiciousness of phishing emails.
- Grilli, M. D., Wank, A. A., Huentelman, M. J., & Ryan, L. (2021). Autobiographical Memory Fluency Reductions in Cognitively Unimpaired Middle-Aged and Older Adults at Increased Risk for Alzheimer's Disease Dementia. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society : JINS, 1-11.More infoRecent research has revealed that cognitively unimpaired older adults who are at higher risk for developing Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia often exhibit subtle cognitive alterations in their neuropsychological profiles. Emerging evidence suggests that autobiographical memory, which is memory for personal events and knowledge, may be sensitive to early AD-related cognitive alterations. In the present study, we investigated whether the rapid generation of autobiographical memory category exemplars, a retrieval process that taxes the neural network that is vulnerable to early AD, is compromised in cognitively unimpaired middle-aged and older carriers of the e4 allele of the apolipoprotein E gene (APOE4), which increases risk for AD dementia.
- Hakim, Z. M., Ebner, N. C., Oliveira, D. S., Getz, S. J., Levin, B. E., Lin, T., Lloyd, K., Lai, V. T., Grilli, M. D., & Wilson, R. C. (2021). The Phishing Email Suspicion Test (PEST) a lab-based task for evaluating the cognitive mechanisms of phishing detection. Behavior research methods.More infoPhishing emails constitute a major problem, linked to fraud and exploitation as well as subsequent negative health outcomes including depression and suicide. Because of their sheer volume, and because phishing emails are designed to deceive, purely technological solutions can only go so far, leaving human judgment as the last line of defense. However, because it is difficult to phish people in the lab, little is known about the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying phishing susceptibility. There is therefore a critical need to develop an ecologically valid lab-based measure of phishing susceptibility that will allow evaluation of the cognitive mechanisms involved in phishing detection. Here we present such a measure based on a task, the Phishing Email Suspicion Test (PEST), and a cognitive model to quantify behavior. In PEST, participants rate a series of phishing and non-phishing emails according to their level of suspicion. By comparing suspicion scores for each email to its real-world efficacy, we find initial support for the ecological validity of PEST - phishing emails that were more effective in the real world were more effective at deceiving people in the lab. In the proposed computational model, we quantify behavior in terms of participants' overall level of suspicion of emails, their ability to distinguish phishing from non-phishing emails, and the extent to which emails from the recent past bias their current decision. Together, our task and model provide a framework for studying the cognitive neuroscience of phishing detection.
- McAvan, A. S., Du, Y. K., Oyao, A., Doner, S., Grilli, M. D., & Ekstrom, A. (2021). Older Adults Show Reduced Spatial Precision but Preserved Strategy-Use During Spatial Navigation Involving Body-Based Cues. Frontiers in aging neuroscience, 13, 640188.More infoOlder adults typically perform worse on spatial navigation tasks, although whether this is due to degradation of memory or an impairment in using specific strategies has yet to be determined. An issue with some past studies is that older adults are tested on desktop-based virtual reality: a technology many report lacking familiarity with. Even when controlling for familiarity, these paradigms reduce the information-rich, three-dimensional experience of navigating to a simple two-dimensional task that utilizes a mouse and keyboard (or joystick) as means for ambulation. Here, we utilize a wireless head-mounted display and free ambulation to create a fully immersive virtual Morris water maze in which we compare the navigation of older and younger adults. Older and younger adults learned the locations of hidden targets from same and different start points. Across different conditions tested, older adults remembered target locations less precisely compared to younger adults. Importantly, however, they performed comparably from the same viewpoint as a switched viewpoint, suggesting that they could generalize their memory for the location of a hidden target given a new point of view. When we implicitly moved one of the distal cues to determine whether older adults used an allocentric (multiple landmarks) or beaconing (single landmark) strategy to remember the hidden target, both older and younger adults showed comparable degrees of reliance on allocentric and beacon cues. These findings support the hypothesis that while older adults have less precise spatial memories, they maintain the ability to utilize various strategies when navigating.
- Raffaelli, Q., Mills, C., de Stefano, N. A., Mehl, M. R., Chambers, K., Fitzgerald, S. A., Wilcox, R., Christoff, K., Andrews, E. S., Grilli, M. D., O'Connor, M. F., & Andrews-Hanna, J. R. (2021). The think aloud paradigm reveals differences in the content, dynamics and conceptual scope of resting state thought in trait brooding. Scientific reports, 11(1), 19362.More infoAlthough central to well-being, functional and dysfunctional thoughts arise and unfold over time in ways that remain poorly understood. To shed light on these mechanisms, we adapted a "think aloud" paradigm to quantify the content and dynamics of individuals' thoughts at rest. Across two studies, external raters hand coded the content of each thought and computed dynamic metrics spanning duration, transition probabilities between affective states, and conceptual similarity over time. Study 1 highlighted the paradigm's high ecological validity and revealed a narrowing of conceptual scope following more negative content. Study 2 replicated Study 1's findings and examined individual difference predictors of trait brooding, a maladaptive form of rumination. Across individuals, increased trait brooding was linked to thoughts rated as more negative, past-oriented and self-focused. Longer negative and shorter positive thoughts were also apparent as brooding increased, as well as a tendency to shift away from positive conceptual states, and a stronger narrowing of conceptual scope following negative thoughts. Importantly, content and dynamics explained independent variance, accounting for a third of the variance in brooding. These results uncover a real-time cognitive signature of rumination and highlight the predictive and ecological validity of the think aloud paradigm applied to resting state cognition.
- Stickel, A. M., McKinnon, A. C., Matijevic, S., Grilli, M. D., Ruiz, J., & Ryan, L. (2021). Apolipoprotein E ε4 Allele-Based Differences in Brain Volumes Are Largely Uniform Across Late Middle Aged and Older Hispanic/Latino- and Non-Hispanic/Latino Whites Without Dementia. Frontiers in aging neuroscience, 13, 627322.More infoHispanics/Latinos are at an equal or a greater risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD), yet risk factors remain more poorly characterized as compared to non-Hispanic/Latino Whites. Among non-Hispanic/Latino White cohorts, the apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele is one of the strongest risk factors for AD with subtle declines in episodic memory and brain volumes detectable in the preclinical stages. We examined whether the APOE ε4 status had a differential impact on cognition and brain volumes among cognitively healthy and mild cognitively impaired Hispanics/Latinos ( = 86; ε4 = 23) compared to a well-matched group of non-Hispanic/Latino Whites ( = 92; ε4 = 29). Neither the APOE ε4 status nor the interaction between the ε4 status and ethnicity was associated with cognitive performance. The APOE ε4 status was associated with white matter and not with gray matter volumes. APOE ε4 carriers had a significantly smaller total brain white matter volumes, as well as smaller right middle temporal and left superior temporal volumes. The Hispanics/Latinos had significantly smaller left middle frontal gray matter volumes, yet marginally larger overall white matter volumes, than the non-Hispanic/Latino Whites. Exploratory analysis within the Hispanic/Latino sample found that those people whose primary language was Spanish had larger total brain white matter volumes compared primarily to the English speakers. Importantly, primary language differences only held for Hispanic/Latino ε4 carriers and did not differentiate Hispanic/Latino non-carriers, underscoring the need for further investigation into the impacts of language and acculturation on cognitive aging among the fastest growing ethnic minority group in the United States.
- Van Etten, E. J., Bharadwaj, P. K., Hishaw, G. A., Huentelman, M. J., Trouard, T. P., Grilli, M. D., & Alexander, G. E. (2021). Influence of regional white matter hyperintensity volume and apolipoprotein E ε4 status on hippocampal volume in healthy older adults. Hippocampus, 31(5), 469-480.More infoWhile total white matter hyperintensity (WMH) volume on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been associated with hippocampal atrophy, less is known about how the regional distribution of WMH volume may differentially affect the hippocampus in healthy aging. Additionally, apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 carriers may be at an increased risk for greater WMH volumes and hippocampal atrophy in aging. The present study sought to investigate whether regional WMH volume mediates the relationship between age and hippocampal volume and if this association is moderated by APOE ε4 status in a group of 190 cognitively healthy adults (APOE ε4 status [carrier/non-carrier] = 59/131), ages 50-89. Analyses revealed that temporal lobe WMH volume significantly mediated the relationship between age and average bilateral hippocampal volume, and this effect was moderated by APOE ε4 status (-0.020 (SE = 0.009), 95% CI, [-0.039, -0.003]). APOE ε4 carriers, but not non-carriers, showed negative indirect effects of age on hippocampal volume through temporal lobe WMH volume (APOE ε4 carriers: -0.016 (SE = 0.007), 95% CI, [-0.030, -0.003]; APOE ε4 non-carriers: .005 (SE = 0.006), 95% CI, [-0.006, 0.017]). These findings remained significant after additionally adjusting for sex, years of education, hypertension status and duration, cholesterol status, diabetes status, Body Mass Index, history of smoking, and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-IV Full Scale IQ. There were no significant moderated mediation effects for frontal, parietal, and occipital lobe WMH volumes, with or without covariates. Our findings indicate that in cognitively healthy older adults, elevated WMH volume regionally localized to the temporal lobes in APOE ε4 carriers is associated with reduced hippocampal volume, suggesting greater vulnerability to brain aging and the risk for Alzheimer's disease.
- Wank, A. A., Andrews-Hanna, J. R., & Grilli, M. D. (2021). Searching for the past: Exploring the dynamics of direct and generative autobiographical memory reconstruction among young and cognitively normal older adults. Memory & cognition.More infoEpisodic autobiographical memories (EAMs) can come to mind through two retrieval routes, one direct (i.e., an EAM is retrieved almost instantaneously) and the other generative (i.e., by using autobiographical/general knowledge to cue an EAM). It is well established that normal cognitive aging is associated with a reduction in the retrieval of EAMs, but the contributions of direct or generative reconstruction to the age-related shift toward general memories remain unknown. Prior studies also have not clarified whether similar cognitive mechanisms facilitate the ability to successfully reconstruct EAMs and elaborate them in event-specific detail. To address these gaps in knowledge, young and older participants were asked to reconstruct EAMs using a "think-aloud" paradigm and then describe in detail a subset of retrieved memories. An adapted scoring procedure was implemented to categorize memories accessed during reconstruction, and the Autobiographical Interview (AI) scoring procedure was utilized for elaboration scoring. Results indicated that in comparison with young adults, older adults not only engaged in direct retrieval less often than young adults but they also more often ended generative retrieval at general events instead of EAMs. The ability to elaborate EAMs with internal details was positively associated with the ability to use generative retrieval to reconstruct EAMs in both young and older adults, but there was no relationship between internal detail elaboration and direct retrieval in either age group. Taken together, these results indicate age-related differences in direct and generative retrieval contribute to overgeneral autobiographical memory and they support a connection between generative retrieval and elaboration.
- Acevedo-Molina, M. C., Matijevic, S., & Grilli, M. D. (2020). Beyond episodic remembering: elaborative retrieval of lifetime periods in young and older adults. Memory (Hove, England), 28(1), 83-93.More infoRelative to young adults, cognitively normal older adults commonly generate more semantic details and fewer episodic details in their descriptions of unique life events. It remains unclear whether this reflects a specific change to episodic memory or a broader alteration to autobiographical narration. To explore age differences across different types of autobiographical narration, we created a lifetime period narrative task that involves describing extended events. For comparison, participants also described unique life events. All autobiographical narratives were scored for episodic, semantic, and other detail generation. Relative to young adults, older adults generated more detailed narratives for remote and recent lifetime periods, which was driven by their increased retrieval of personal and general semantic details. Older adults also generated more semantic details for unique life event narratives, along with reduced episodic detail. More broadly, in both groups lifetime period narratives were largely based on semantic details, whereas episodic details were more prominent in the descriptions of unique life events. These findings indicate that the elevated generation of semantic details associated with normal cognitive aging is reflected in multiple types of autobiographical narration. We suggest that lifetime period narration is a spared aspect of autobiographical memory among older adults.
- Acevedo-Molina, M. C., Novak, A. W., Gregoire, L. M., Mann, L. G., Andrews-Hanna, J. R., & Grilli, M. D. (2020). Emotion matters: The influence of valence on episodic future thinking in young and older adults. Consciousness and cognition, 85, 103023.More infoIn young adults, valence not only alters the degree to which future events are imagined in rich episodic detail, but also how memorable these events are later on. For older adults, how valence influences episodic detail generation while imagining future events, or recalling these details at another time, remains unclear. We investigated the effect of valence on the specificity and memorability of episodic future thinking (EFT) in young and older adults. Among young and older adults, negative EFT was accompanied by less episodic detail generation relative to positive and neutral EFT. A similar reduction in episodic specificity for negative EFT was found two days later when participants recalled their previously imagined events. Notably, while older adults generated less episodically specific future thoughts relative to young adults, age did not influence the effect of valence on episodic detail generation at imagination or recollection.
- Memel, M., Wank, A. A., Ryan, L., & Grilli, M. D. (2020). The relationship between episodic detail generation and anterotemporal, posteromedial, and hippocampal white matter tracts. Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 123, 124-140.More infoEpisodic details populate autobiographical memories with vivid representations of people, objects, and event happenings, and they link events to a specific time and place. Episodic detail generation is believed to be a function of medial temporal lobe (MTL)-cortical interaction, but much remains unclear about how this retrieval process unfolds. In the present study, we combined an autobiographical interview and diffusion magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the relationships of two types of episodic detail, namely details about entities of an event (people and objects) or "event elements" and details about spatiotemporal context, to the integrity of anterotemporal (uncinate fasciculus; UF) and posteromedial (cingulum bundle; CB) cortical pathways. We also measured the relationships of these detail types to the fornix, and the relationship between non-episodic details and these tracts. We found that only episodic detail generation was significantly related to cortical and hippocampal pathways. Notably, the UF was more strongly related to event element details than it was to spatiotemporal context details. In contrast, CB was significantly and similarly related to the generation of event element and spatiotemporal context details (when not controlling for age and global diffusion). The fornix was also significantly related to both types of episodic detail, although the relationship to spatiotemporal context was particularly robust. These findings support the idea that anterotemporal cortical regions are related to the retrieval of episodic details about the entities that are incorporated into autobiographical events. Our findings also align with the notion that posteromedial and hippocampal-cortical involvement support the retrieval of episodic details.
- Polsinelli, A. J., Moseley, S. A., Grilli, M. D., Glisky, E. L., & Mehl, M. R. (2020). Natural, Everyday Language Use Provides a Window Into the Integrity of Older Adults' Executive Functioning. The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, 75(9), e215-e220.More infoLanguage markers derived from structured clinical interviews and assessments have been found to predict age-related normal and pathological cognitive functioning. An important question, then, is the degree to which the language that people use in their natural daily interactions, rather than their language elicited within and specifically for clinical assessment, carries information about key cognitive functions associated with age-related decline. In an observational study, we investigated how variability in executive functioning (EF) manifests in patterns of daily word use.
- Wank, A. A., Mehl, M. R., Andrews-Hanna, J. R., Polsinelli, A. J., Moseley, S., Glisky, E. L., & Grilli, M. D. (2020). Eavesdropping on Autobiographical Memory: A Naturalistic Observation Study of Older Adults' Memory Sharing in Daily Conversations. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 14, 238.More infoThe retrieval of autobiographical memories is an integral part of everyday social interactions. Prior laboratory research has revealed that older age is associated with a reduction in the retrieval of autobiographical episodic memories, and the ability to elaborate these memories with episodic details. However, how age-related reductions in episodic specificity unfold in everyday social contexts remains largely unknown. Also, constraints of the laboratory-based approach have limited our understanding of how autobiographical semantic memory is linked to older age. To address these gaps in knowledge, we used a smartphone application known as the Electronically Activated Recorder, or "EAR," to unobtrusively capture real-world conversations over 4 days. In a sample of 102 cognitively normal older adults, we extracted instances where memories and future thoughts were shared by the participants, and we scored the shared episodic memories and future thoughts for their make-up of episodic and semantic detail. We found that older age was associated with a reduction in real-world sharing of autobiographical episodic and semantic memories. We also found that older age was linked to less episodically and semantically detailed descriptions of autobiographical episodic memories. Frequency and level of detail of shared future thoughts yielded weaker relationships with age, which may be related to the low frequency of future thoughts in general. Similar to laboratory research, there was no correlation between autobiographical episodic detail sharing and a standard episodic memory test. However, in contrast to laboratory studies, episodic detail production while sharing autobiographical episodic memories was weakly related to episodic detail production while describing future events, unrelated to working memory, and not different between men and women. Overall, our findings provide novel evidence of how older age relates to episodic specificity when autobiographical memories are assessed unobtrusively and objectively "in the wild."
- Grilli, M. D., Coste, S., Landry, J. E., & Mangen, K. (2019). Evidence that an episodic mode of thinking facilitates encoding of perceptually rich memories for naturalistic events relative to a gist-based mode of thinking. Memory (Hove, England), 27(10), 1468-1474.More infoSeveral studies have demonstrated that an episodic specificity induction (ESI) can influence cognitive abilities that involve episodic processes at retrieval. To better understand the downstream implications of an "episodic mode of thinking," we investigate whether an ESI influences encoding of new events. In a between-subjects design, participants were given an ESI or gist (control) induction. In an ostensibly unrelated task, participants then were shown film clips of naturalistic events. After a filled delay, participants were given a surprise memory test, which required narrative recollection of the film clips. Participants who received the ESI generated narratives that contained more perceptual details specifically. Relative to gist thinking, an episodic mode of thinking appears to facilitate encoding of perceptually rich memories for naturalistic events.
- Hou, M., Grilli, M. D., & Glisky, E. L. (2019). Self-Reference enhances memory for multi-element events judged likely to happen in young and older adults. Memory (Hove, England), 27(10), 1451-1461.More infoWe investigated whether the strategy of self-reference can benefit memory for multi-element events, a kind of relational memory that is relatively less studied but highly relevant to daily life. Young and older adults imagined different person-object-location events with reference to themselves and two famous others (i.e., George Clooney and Oprah Winfrey), rated the likelihood that each event would happen, and then completed incidental memory tests on different pairs of elements within the event. We found that self-reference enhanced memory for object-location and person-object pairs in both age groups. Such self-reference effects were observed consistently only for events rated as likely to happen. There was also an overall memory advantage for the higher-likelihood events, which did not differ between young and older adults. Further, the self-reference effects were not correlated with memory functioning in either age group. Retrieval of within-event associations showed a significant level of dependency, which did not differ as a function of reference condition or likelihood category. These findings highlight the ways in which self-reference and prior knowledge improve relational memory, and suggest that the advantage of self-reference is not attributable to increased dependence of elements within complex events.
- Hou, M., Grilli, M. D., & Glisky, E. L. (2019). Self-reference enhances relational memory in young and older adults. Neuropsychology, development, and cognition. Section B, Aging, neuropsychology and cognition, 1-16.More infoThe present study investigated the influence of self-reference on two kinds of relational memory, internal source memory and associative memory, in young and older adults. Participants encoded object-location word pairs using the strategies of imagination and sentence generation, either with reference to themselves or to a famous other (i.e., George Clooney or Oprah Winfrey). Both young and older adults showed memory benefits in the self-reference conditions compared to other-reference conditions on both tests, and the self-referential effects in older adults were not limited by low memory or executive functioning. These results suggest that self-reference can benefit relational memory in older adults relatively independently of basic memory and executive functions.
- Stickel, A., McKinnon, A., Ruiz, J., Grilli, M. D., & Ryan, L. (2019). The impact of cardiovascular risk factors on cognition in Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites. Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.), 26(7), 235-244.More infoAmong non-Hispanic whites, cardiovascular risk factors are associated with increased mortality and poorer cognition. Prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors among aging Hispanics is also high and Hispanics generally have poorer access to healthcare, yet they tend to have advantageous cardiovascular disease rates and outcomes and live longer than non-Hispanic whites, an epidemiological phenomenon commonly referred to as the Hispanic or Latino health paradox. Although robust data support these ethnic benefits on physical health and mortality, it is unknown if it extends to include cognition resilience advantages in older adulthood. The present study compared relationships between cardiovascular risk and cognition (executive functions and episodic memory) in late middle age and older Hispanics ( = 87) and non-Hispanic whites ( = 81). Participants were selected from the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center and Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative databases. Hispanics and non-Hispanic white groups were matched on age (50-94 yr, mean age = 72 yr), education, gender, cognitive status (i.e., cognitively healthy versus mildly cognitively impaired), and apolipoprotein E4 status. History of hypertension and higher body mass index were both associated with poorer executive functions among Hispanics but not non-Hispanic whites. Our findings suggest greater vulnerability to impairments in executive functions among Hispanics with hypertension and obesity, contrary to the notion of a Hispanic health paradox for cognitive aging.
- Strikwerda-Brown, C., Grilli, M. D., Andrews-Hanna, J., & Irish, M. (2019). "All is not lost"-Rethinking the nature of memory and the self in dementia. Ageing research reviews, 54, 100932.More infoMemory and the self have long been considered intertwined, leading to the assumption that without memory, there can be no self. This line of reasoning has led to the misconception that a loss of memory in dementia necessarily results in a diminished sense of self. Here, we challenge this assumption by considering discrete facets of self-referential memory, and their relative profiles of loss and sparing, across three neurodegenerative disorders: Alzheimer's disease, semantic dementia, and frontotemporal dementia. By exploring canonical expressions of the self across past, present, and future contexts in dementia, relative to healthy ageing, we reconcile previous accounts of loss of self in dementia, and propose a new framework for understanding and managing everyday functioning and behaviour. Notably, our approach highlights the multifaceted and dynamic nature in which the temporally-extended self is likely to change in healthy and pathological ageing, with important ramifications for development of person-centred care. Collectively, we aim to promote a cohesive sense of self in dementia across past, present, and future contexts, by demonstrating how, ultimately, 'All is not lost'.
- Grilli, M. D., Bercel, J. J., Wank, A. A., & Rapcsak, S. Z. (2018). The contribution of the left anterior ventrolateral temporal lobe to the retrieval of personal semantics. Neuropsychologia, 117, 178-187.More infoAutobiographical facts and personal trait knowledge are conceptualized as distinct types of personal semantics, but the cognitive and neural mechanisms that separate them remain underspecified. One distinction may be their level of specificity, with autobiographical facts reflecting idiosyncratic conceptual knowledge and personal traits representing basic level category knowledge about the self. Given the critical role of the left anterior ventrolateral temporal lobe (AVTL) in the storage and retrieval of semantic information about unique entities, we hypothesized that knowledge of autobiographical facts may depend on the integrity of this region to a greater extent than personal traits. To provide neuropsychological evidence relevant to this issue, we investigated personal semantics, semantic knowledge of non-personal unique entities, and episodic memory in two individuals with well-defined left (MK) versus right (DW) AVTL lesions. Relative to controls, MK demonstrated preserved personal trait knowledge but impaired "experience-far" (i.e., spatiotemporal independent) autobiographical fact knowledge, semantic memory for non-personal unique entities, and episodic memory. In contrast, both experience-far autobiographical facts and personal traits were spared in DW, whereas episodic memory and aspects of semantic memory for non-personal unique entities were impaired. These findings support the notion that autobiographical facts and personal traits have distinct cognitive features and neural mechanisms. They also suggest a common organizing principle for personal and non-personal semantics, namely the specificity of such knowledge to an entity, which is reflected in the contribution of the left AVTL to retrieval.
- Grilli, M. D., Wank, A. A., Bercel, J. J., & Ryan, L. (2018). Evidence for Reduced Autobiographical Memory Episodic Specificity in Cognitively Normal Middle-Aged and Older Individuals at Increased Risk for Alzheimer's Disease Dementia. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society : JINS, 24(10), 1073-1083.More infoAlzheimer's disease (AD) typically eludes clinical detection for years, if not decades. The identification of subtle cognitive decline associated with preclinical AD would not only advance understanding of the disease, but also provide clinical targets to assess preventative and early intervention treatments. Disrupted retrieval of detailed episodic autobiographical memories may be a sensitive indicator of subtle cognitive decline, because this type of memory taxes a core neural network affected by preclinical AD neuropathology.
- Grilli, M. D., Woolverton, C. B., Crawford, M., & Glisky, E. L. (2018). Self-reference and emotional memory effects in older adults at increased genetic risk of Alzheimer's disease. Neuropsychology, development, and cognition. Section B, Aging, neuropsychology and cognition, 1-14.More infoThe present study investigated whether cognitively healthy older adults who are carriers of the ε4 allele of apolipoprotein E, the most prevalent genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer's disease, benefit from self-referential processing and emotional processing to the same degree as noncarriers of this gene. Participants encoded emotional and nonemotional narratives using a baseline-orienting task, semantic elaboration, or imagination-based self-referential processing and then completed a recognition memory test. Both groups of older adults showed enhanced recognition memory for narrative information following self-referential processing relative to semantic elaboration, and the magnitude of this memory effect was not affected by ε4 status. However, older adult ε4 carriers did not show an emotional enhancement effect, whereas older adult ε4 noncarriers did. These results indicate that whereas the self-reference effect is not attenuated in cognitively healthy older adults ε4 carriers, deficits in emotional memory may be an early cognitive marker of abnormal decline.
- Grilli, M. D. (2017). The association of personal semantic memory to identity representations: insight into higher-order networks of autobiographical contents. Memory (Hove, England), 25(10), 1435-1443.More infoIdentity representations are higher-order knowledge structures that organise autobiographical memories on the basis of personality and role-based themes of one's self-concept. In two experiments, the extent to which different types of personal semantic content are reflected in these higher-order networks of memories was investigated. Healthy, young adult participants generated identity representations that varied in remoteness of formation and verbally reflected on these themes in an open-ended narrative task. The narrative responses were scored for retrieval of episodic, experience-near personal semantic and experience-far (i.e., abstract) personal semantic contents. Results revealed that to reflect on remotely formed identity representations, experience-far personal semantic contents were retrieved more than experience-near personal semantic contents. In contrast, to reflect on recently formed identity representations, experience-near personal semantic contents were retrieved more than experience-far personal semantic contents. Although episodic memory contents were retrieved less than both personal semantic content types to reflect on remotely formed identity representations, this content type was retrieved at a similar frequency as experience-far personal semantic content to reflect on recently formed identity representations. These findings indicate that the association of personal semantic content to identity representations is robust and related to time since acquisition of these knowledge structures.
- Grilli, M. D., Wank, A. A., & Verfaellie, M. (2017). The Life Stories of Adults with Amnesia: Insights into the Contribution of the MTL to the Higher-Order Organization of Autobiographical Memory. Neuropsychologia.More infoAutobiographical memories are not stored in isolation but rather are organized into life chapters, higher-order knowledge structures that represent major themes conveying the arc of one's life. Neuropsychological studies have revealed that both episodic memory and some aspects of personal semantic memory are impaired in adults with medial temporal lobe (MTL) damage. However, whether such impairment compromises the retrieval and formation of life chapters is unknown. Therefore, we had 10 adults with MTL amnesia and 20 control participants narrate their life stories, and we extracted life chapters from these narratives using a novel scoring protocol. For the retrograde and anterograde time period separately, we evaluated the number of life chapters and assessed their quality, as indexed by measures of complexity and richness. Additionally, to investigate the idea that formation of life chapters occurs on a protracted time scale, we separated the amnesic participants into an early-life and a later-life onset subgroup. Results revealed that early-onset, but not later-onset, amnesic participants generated fewer retrograde life chapters than controls. The higher-order temporal relation among retrograde chapters, but not their thematic relation or the richness of individual life chapters, was impaired in both amnesic subgroups. The amnesic participants also generated fewer anterograde life chapters than controls, and the richness of their anterograde chapters was reduced in terms of content, but not self-reflection. Findings suggest that the organization of autobiographical content into life chapters is a protracted process that depends on the MTL, as does retrieval of higher order temporal relations among life chapters.
- Marquine, M. J., Grilli, M. D., Rapcsak, S. Z., Kaszniak, A. W., Ryan, L., Walther, K., & Glisky, E. L. (2017). Impaired personal trait knowledge, but spared other-person trait knowledge, in an individual with bilateral damage to the medial prefrontal cortex. Neuropsychologia, 89, 245-53.More infoFunctional neuroimaging has revealed that in healthy adults retrieval of personal trait knowledge is associated with increased activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Separately, neuropsychology has shown that the self-referential nature of memory can be disrupted in individuals with mPFC lesions. However, it remains unclear whether damage to the mPFC impairs retrieval of personal trait knowledge. Therefore, in this neuropsychological case study we investigated the integrity of personal trait knowledge in J.S., an individual who sustained bilateral damage to the mPFC as a result of an anterior communicating artery aneurysm. We measured both accuracy and consistency of J.S.'s personal trait knowledge as well as his trait knowledge of another, frequently seen person, and compared his performance to a group of healthy adults. Findings revealed that J.S. had severely impaired accuracy and consistency of his personal trait knowledge relative to control participants. In contrast, J.S.'s accuracy and consistency of other-person trait knowledge was intact in comparison to control participants. Moreover, J.S. showed a normal positivity bias in his trait ratings. These results, albeit based on a single case, implicate the mPFC as critical for retrieval of personal trait knowledge. Findings also cast doubt on the likelihood that the mPFC, in particular the ventral mPFC, is necessary for storage and retrieval of trait knowledge of other people. Therefore, this case study adds to a growing body of evidence that mPFC damage can disrupt the link between self and memory.
- Grilli, M. D., & Verfaellie, M. (2016). Experience-near but not experience-far autobiographical facts depend on the medial temporal lobe for retrieval: Evidence from amnesia. Neuropsychologia, 81, 180-5.More infoThis paper addresses the idea that there may be two types of autobiographical facts with distinct cognitive and neural mechanisms: "Experience-near" autobiographical facts, which contain spatiotemporal content derived from personal experience and thus depend on the medial temporal lobe (MTL) for retrieval, and "experience-far" autobiographical facts, which are abstract memories and thus rely on neocortical brain regions involved in retrieval of general semantic memory. To investigate this conceptual model of autobiographical fact knowledge, we analyzed the nature of autobiographical facts that were generated by 8 individuals with MTL amnesia and 12 control participants in a recent study of identity and memory [Grilli, M.D., & Verfaellie, M. (2015). Supporting the self-concept with memory: insight from amnesia. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 10, 1684-1692]. Results revealed that MTL amnesic participants generated fewer experience-near autobiographical facts than controls. Experience-far autobiographical fact generation was not impaired in amnesic participants with damage restricted to the MTL, but there was preliminary evidence to suggest that it may be impaired in amnesic participants with damage to the MTL and anterior lateral temporal lobe. These results support a cognitive and neural distinction between experience-near and experience-far autobiographical facts and have implications for understanding the contribution of autobiographical fact knowledge to self-related cognition.
- Grilli, M. D., & Verfaellie, M. (2015). Supporting the self-concept with memory: insight from amnesia. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 10(12), 1684-92.More infoWe investigated the extent to which personal semantic memory supports the self-concept in individuals with medial temporal lobe amnesia and healthy adults. Participants completed eight 'I Am' self-statements. For each of the four highest ranked self-statements, participants completed an open-ended narrative task, during which they provided supporting information indicating why the I Am statement was considered self-descriptive. Participants then completed an episodic probe task, during which they attempted to retrieve six episodic memories for each of these self-statements. Supporting information was scored as episodic, personal semantic or general semantic. In the narrative task, personal semantic memory predominated as self-supporting information in both groups. The amnesic participants generated fewer personal semantic memories than controls to support their self-statements, a deficit that was more pronounced for trait relative to role self-statements. In the episodic probe task, the controls primarily generated unique event memories, but the amnesic participants did not. These findings demonstrate that personal semantic memory, in particular autobiographical fact knowledge, plays a critical role in supporting the self-concept, regardless of the accessibility of episodic memories, and they highlight potential differences in the way traits and roles are supported by personal memory.
- Grilli, M. D., & Verfaellie, M. (2014). Personal semantic memory: insights from neuropsychological research on amnesia. Neuropsychologia, 61, 56-64.More infoThis paper provides insight into the cognitive and neural mechanisms of personal semantic memory, knowledge that is specific and unique to individuals, by reviewing neuropsychological research on stable amnesia secondary to medial temporal lobe damage. The results reveal that personal semantic memory does not depend on a unitary set of cognitive and neural mechanisms. Findings show that autobiographical fact knowledge reflects an experience-near type of personal semantic memory that relies on the medial temporal lobe for retrieval, albeit less so than personal episodic memory. Additional evidence demonstrates that new autobiographical fact learning likely relies on the medial temporal lobe, but the extent to which remains unclear. Other findings show that retrieval of personal traits/roles and new learning of personal traits/roles and thoughts/beliefs are independent of the medial temporal lobe and thus may represent highly conceptual types of personal semantic memory that are stored in the neocortex.
- Grilli, M. D., & Glisky, E. L. (2013). Imagining a better memory: Self-imagination in memory-impaired patients. Clinical Psychological Science, 1(1), 93-99.
- Grilli, M. D., & Glisky, E. L. (2011). The self-imagination effect: benefits of a self-referential encoding strategy on cued recall in memory-impaired individuals with neurological damage. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society : JINS, 17(5), 929-33.More infoKnowledge of oneself is preserved in many memory-impaired individuals with neurological damage. Therefore, cognitive strategies that capitalize on mechanisms related to the self may be particularly effective at enhancing memory in this population. The present study investigated the effect of "self-imagining," imagining an event from a personal perspective, on short and long delayed cued recall in memory-impaired individuals with neurological damage. Sixteen patients intentionally encoded word pairs under four separate conditions: visual imagery, semantic elaboration, other person imagining, and self-imagining. The results revealed that self-imagining led to better performance than other-imagining, semantic elaboration, and visual imagery. Furthermore, the "self-imagination effect" (SIE) was preserved after a 30-min delay and was independent of memory functioning. These findings indicate that self-imagining provides a mnemonic advantage in brain-injured individuals, even those with relatively poor memory functioning, and suggest that self-imagining may tap into mnemonic mechanisms related to the self.
- Grilli, M. D., & McFarland, C. P. (2011). Imagine that: self-imagination improves prospective memory in memory-impaired individuals with neurological damage. Neuropsychological rehabilitation, 21(6), 847-59.More infoRecent research has demonstrated that "self-imagination" - a mnemonic strategy developed by Grilli and Glisky (2010) - enhances episodic memory in memory-impaired individuals with neurological damage more than traditional cognitive strategies, including semantic elaboration and visual imagery. The present study investigated the effect of self-imagination on prospective memory in individuals with neurologically based memory deficits. In two separate sessions, 12 patients with memory impairment took part in a computerised general knowledge test that required them to answer multiple choice questions (i.e., ongoing task) and press the "1" key when a target word appeared in a question (i.e., prospective memory task). Prior to the start of the general knowledge test in each session, participants attempted to encode the prospective memory task with one of two strategies: self-imagination or rote-rehearsal. The findings revealed a "self-imagination effect (SIE)" in prospective memory as self-imagining resulted in better prospective memory performance than rote-rehearsal. These results demonstrate that the mnemonic advantage of self-imagination extends to prospective memory in memory-impaired individuals with neurological damage and suggest that self-imagination has potential in cognitive rehabilitation.
- Grilli, M. D., & Glisky, E. L. (2010). Self-imagining enhances recognition memory in memory-impaired individuals with neurological damage. Neuropsychology, 24(6), 698-710.More infoThe ability to imagine an elaborative event from a personal perspective relies on several cognitive processes that may potentially enhance subsequent memory for the event, including visual imagery, semantic elaboration, emotional processing, and self-referential processing. In an effort to find a novel strategy for enhancing memory in memory-impaired individuals with neurological damage, we investigated the mnemonic benefit of a method we refer to as self-imagining-the imagining of an event from a realistic, personal perspective.
Presentations
- Grilli, M. D. (2018, 4/Spring). Encoding and retrieval of complex events: A shift towards knowledge-based processing with normal aging. Paper presented at the Evelyn F. McKnight Annual Meeting, Birmingham, Alabama.
- Grilli, M. D. (2021, Fall). Tracking autobiographical thoughts in the lab and “in the wild”: new insights into cognitive aging. Neuropsychology Rounds. Toronto, Canada: York University.
- Grilli, M. D., Wank, A. A., Huentelman, M. J., & Ryan, L. (2021, 2/Spring). Autobiographical memory fluency reductions in cognitively unimpaired middle-aged and older adults at increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease dementia. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society. (virtual meeting).
- Grilli, M. D., Wank, A., Huentelman, M., & Ryan, L. (2021, Spring). Autobiographical memory fluency reductions in cognitively unimpaired middle-aged and older adults at increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease dementia. Annual Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society. Virtual: The International Neuropsychological Society.
- McVeigh, K., Wank, A., Angelina, P., Mosley, S., Elizabeth, G., & Grilli, M. D. (2021, Spring). Loneliness and aging: Manifestations of loneliness in everyday conversations among older adults. Annual Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society. Virtual: The International Neuropsychological Society.
- Grilli, M. D. (2020, 01/Spring). The relationship between memory and photography. LIGHT event at the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.
- Grilli, M. D. (2020, 08/Fall). Conceptual and contextual remembering: Insights from neuropsychological studies. Context and Episodic Memory Symposium, Virtual meeting, Hosted by University of Pennsylvania.
- Grilli, M. D. (2020, 11/Fall). The sounds of healthy aging. Gerontological Society of America Annual Meeting, Virtual meeting.
- Grilli, M. D. (2020, 5/Spring). Eavesdropping on autobiographical memory in cognitively normal older adults. Paper presented at the Annual McKnight Meeting, Miami, FL. (conference cancelled).
- Grilli, M. D. (2020, Oct/Fall). Autobiographical memory, aging, and Alzheimer’s disease risk. Neuropsychology and Neuroimaging Lecture Series. VA Boston Healthcare System.
- Grilli, M. D. (2019, 10/Fall). Tracking autobiographical thoughts: Improving sensitivity to Alzheimer’s disease risk. Paper presented at the Fall meeting of the Alzheimer’s Disease Core Centers. St. Louis, MO.
- Grilli, M. D. (2019, 11/Fall). The cognitive and neural bases of personal semantics: Insights from individuals with medial temporal lobe amnesia. Paper presented at the Psychonomic Society Annual Meeting as part of a symposium on episodic and semantic memory, Montreal, Canada.
- Grilli, M. D. (2018, 4/Spring). Evidence of compromised episodic autobiographical memory in clinically normal older adults at increased genetic risk of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Paper presented at the International Conference on Learning and Memory. Huntington Beach, CA.
- Grilli, M. D., Wank, A. A., Bercel, J. J., & Ryan, L. (2018, 2/2018). Evidence of reduced autobiographical memory specificity in individuals at increased genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease dementia. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society. Washington, D.C..
- Grilli, M. D. (2017, 03/spring). Autobiographical memory and emotional memory in cognitively healthy middle-aged and older adult e4 carriers. Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium Annual Retreat. Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.
- Grilli, M. D. (2017, 11/fall). Sharing memories of life events: How the oral retrieval of autobiographical memory changes with normal and abnormal aging. Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences Colloquium. Tucson, Arizona.
- Grilli, M. D., Wank, A. A., & Verfaellie, M. (2017, February). The life stories of adults with amnesia: Insights into the contribution of the medial temporal lobe to the higher-order organization of autobiographical memory. International Neuropsychological Society Annual Meeting. New Orleans, LA.
- Grilli, M. D., Wank, A. A., Bercel, J. J., & Lee, R. (2017, 05/spring). Detailed retrieval of autobiographical events is impaired in healthy middle-aged and older adult e4 carriers. Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium Annual Meeting. Scottsdale, Arizona.
- Grilli, M. D. (2016, February). Episodic memory enhancement effects in cognitively healthy older adult e4 carriers. Arizona Alzheimer's Consortium Annual Retreat. Safford, AZ.
- Grilli, M. D. (2016, October). Memories of the self: Insights into the content and organization of autobiographical memory from research on amnesia. Social Psychology Brown Bag.
- Grilli, M. D. (2015, 1/Spring). The neuropsychology of self and memory: Clinical and theoretical directions. Brandeis University Invited Speaker. Brandeis University.
- Grilli, M. D. (2015, 10/Fall). Supporting the self-concept with memory: Insight from amnesia. University of Arizona Psychology Department Data Blitz. University of Arizona.
- Grilli, M. D. (2015, 11/Fall). Mechanisms and functions of personal semantic memory: Insight from amnesia. University of Arizona Cognitive Science Colloquium. University of Arizona.
- Glisky, E. L., & Grilli, M. D. (2012, 9/Fall). Self-imagination improves memory in memory-impaired individuals. Memory Disorders Research Society. Davis, CA.
- Grilli, M. D. (2011, 10/Fall). Self-imagination improves free recall in brain-damaged individuals: A new treatment for memory impairment. Arizona Neuropsychological Society Meeting. Phoenix, AZ.
- Grilli, M. D., & Glisky, E. L. (2010, 5/Spring). Self-imagination enhances memory in individuals with memory impairment. Arizona Alzheimer's Consortium Meeting. Phoenix, AZ.
- Grilli, M. D. (2007, 6/Spring). Implicit memory contextual effects. University of California Undergraduate Research Symposium. Irvine, CA.
Poster Presentations
- Acevedo-Molina, M., Griego, S., Mizell, J. M., & Grilli, M. D. (2021, Spring). Exploring autobiographical memory in bilingual Hispanics. Annual Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society. Virtual: The International Neuropsychological Society.
- Acevedo-Molina, M., Griego, S., Mizell, J., & Grilli, M. D. (2021, 2/Spring). Exploring autobiographical memory in bilingual Hispanics.. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society. (virtual meeting).
- McVeigh, K., Mehl, M., Wank, A., Moseley, S., Polsinelli, A., Glisky, E., & Grilli, M. D. (2021, 2/Spring). Loneliness and aging: Manifestations of loneliness in everyday conversations among older adults. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society. (virtual meeting).
- Matijevic, S., Huentelman, M., Grilli, M. D., & Ryan, L. (2020, 5/Spring). Global vs. Tract-Specific Changes in DTI Measures in Aging. Poster presented at the Cognitive Aging Conference, Atlanta, GA. (conference cancelled).
- Matijevic, S., Wank, A., Huentelman, M., Ryan, L., & Grilli, M. D. (2020, 5/Spring). Individual differences in episodic detail generation in older adults. Poster presented at the Cognitive Aging Conference, Atlanta, GA. (conference cancelled).
- Palmer, J. M., Lawrence, A., Grilli, M. D., Huentelman, M., Talboon, J., & Ryan, L. (2020, 5/Spring). Context-dependent memory between e4 carriers and non-carriers. Poster presented at Cognitive Aging Conference, Atlanta, GA. (conference cancelled).
- Wank, A. A., Mehl, M. R., Andrews-Hanna, J. R., Polsinelli, A., Moseley, S., Glisky, E. L., & Grilli, M. D. (2020, 4/2020). Older age is related to decreases in autobiographical memory sharing in everyday conversations. Poster presented at the Cognitive Aging Conference, Atlanta, GA. (conference cancelled).
- Wank, A. A., Robertson, A., Rapcsak, S. Z., & Grilli, M. D. (2020, 2/Spring). Impaired personal trait knowledge in a case of medial temporal lobe amnesia. Poster presented at the International Neuropsychological Society Conference, Denver, CO.
- Acevedo-Molina, M., Teposte, M., Robertson, A., & Grilli, M. D. (2019, 2/Spring). Cognitively normal older adults show elevated semantic detail generation for multiple forms of autobiographical memory retrieval. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society, New York City, NY.
- Hou, M., Grilli, M. D., & Glisky, E. (2019, 3/Spring). Self-reference enhances memory for multi-element events judged likely to happen in young and older adults. Poster presented at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA.
- Matijevic, S., Grilli, M. D., & Ryan, L. (2019, 5/Spring). Role of white matter integrity in age-related differences in autobiographical memory. Poster presented at the Arizona Alzheimer's Consortium Annual Scientific Conference, Phoenix, AZ.
- Memel, M., Wank, A., Ryan, L., & Grilli, M. D. (2019, 2/Spring). The relationship between episodic autobiographical memory detail generation and the integrity of MTL-cortical white matter pathways in cognitively normal older adults. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society, New York City, NY.
- Wank, A. A., & Grilli, M. D. (2019, 2/Spring). Relationship of inhibition ability to early versus later stages of episodic autobiographical memory retrieval in cognitively normal older adults. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society, New York City, NY..
- Wank, A. A., Moseley, S., Polsinelli, A., Glisky, E., Mehl, M., & Grilli, M. D. (2019, 5/Spring). From laboratory to real-world: Measuring autobiographical memory retrieval in naturalistic settings can replicate laboratory-based findings. Poster presented at the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium Conference, Tempe, AZ.
- Grilli, M. D., Bercel, J. J., Wank, A. A., & Rapcsak, S. Z. (2018, 2/2018). The fractionation of personal semantic memory: Evidence from two individuals with anterior ventrolateral temporal lobe lesions. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society. Washington, D.C..
- Wank, A. A., Andrews-Hanna, J. R., & Grilli, M. D. (2018, 5/Spring). The efficiency of direct and generative retrieval routes in normal cognitive aging. Poster presented at the Cognitive Aging Conference, Atlanta, GA.
- Wank, A. A., Bercel, J. J., & Grilli, M. D. (2018, 2/2018). Disrupted retrieval fluency for remote autobiographical events in cognitively healthy apolipoprotein e e4 carriers. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society. Washington, D.C..
- Wank, A. A., Moseley, S., Polsinelli, A., Mehl, M. R., & Grilli, M. D. (2018, 5/Spring). The efficiency of direct and generative retrieval routes in normal cognitive aging. Poster presented at the Annual Arizona Alzheimer’s Disease Core Center Conference, Phoenix, AZ.
- Samuels, A., & Grilli, M. D. (2017, 05/spring). The effect of autobiographical memory retrieval on the self-concept. Psychology Department Undergraduate Honors Program Research Symposium. Tucson, Arizona.
- Grilli, M. D., Woolverton, C. B., & Glisky, E. L. (2016, May). Emotional memory: A preclinical cognitive marker of Alzheimer’s disease?. Arizona Alzheimer's Consortium Annual Meeting. Scottsdale, AZ.
- Hoo, M., & Grilli, M. D. (2016, September). Self-referential cueing and autobiographical memory in adults with traumatic brain injury. Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science Annual Meeting. Long Beach, CA.
- Grilli, M. D., & Verfaellie, M. (2015, 2/Spring). The contribution of memory to the self-concept in amnesia. Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society. Denver, CO: International Neuropsychological Society.
- McFarland, C. P., Grilli, M. D., & Glisky, E. L. (2014, 2/Spring). Visual imagery improves inhibition in young adults. Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society. Seattle, WA.
- Grilli, M. D., & Glisky, E. L. (2012, 2/Spring). Self-knowledge and the self-imagination effect (SIE) in free recall: implications for cognitive rehabilitation and memory disorders. Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society. Montreal, Canada.
- Grilli, M. D., & Glisky, E. L. (2011, 2/Spring). Enhancing cued recall in memory-impaired individuals: The benefit of self-imagining. Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society. Boston, MA.
- Grilli, M. D., & Glisky, E. L. (2011, 2/Spring). Imagining from a field perspective enhances recognition memory more than imagining from an observer perspective. Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society. Boston, MA.
- Grilli, M. D., & Glisky, E. L. (2010, 2/Spring). Improving prospective memory with self-imagining in individuals who have neurologically-based memory deficits. Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society. Acapulco, Mexico.
- Grilli, M. D., & Glisky, E. L. (2009, 2/Spring). Self-imagining enhances recognition memory in memory-impaired individuals. Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society. Atlanta, GA.
- Wang, T., Grilli, M. D., & Rugg, M. D. (2008, 4/Spring). Effects of advanced aging on the neural correlates of recognition memory. Cognitive Neuroscience Society Meeting. San Francisco, CA.