Master’s Defence in Psychology

Pétur Kristófersson will defend his Master's thesis in Psychology. The thesis is based on the scientific article “Is Heart Rate Variability Associated with Semantic and Procedural Memory Performance in People with Epilepsy?”

The article has been submitted to the journal Epilepsy & Behavior and is currently under peer review.

• The defence will take place online only and is open to everyone
• The defence can be followed on Zoom here
• Pétur's supervisor is Prof. Yvonne Höller at the University of Akureyri
• Opponent: Dr Sandra Lafenthaler, Paracelsus Medical University, Salzburg, Austria

Abstract

Memory impairments and autonomic dysfunction are common in people with epilepsy. However, the link between autonomic dysfunction and semantic and procedural memory is less understood and has been overlooked in both healthy and clinical populations. We assessed whether autonomic dysfunction, measured with heart rate variability (HRV), was associated with memory performance in 68 patients at an epilepsy monitoring unit in Austria. It was hypothesized that higher HRV would be associated with better semantic and procedural memory performance in epilepsy patients. Using multiple linear regression models, we compared HRV (RMSSD, SDNN, low- and high-frequency power, and LF/HF ratio) with semantic (recall on semantically related word-pairs), and procedural memory (fingertapping task) performance in three groups: left TLE (n = 14), other epilepsy, including right and bilateral TLE (n = 46) and no epilepsy (n = 8). Unadjusted models included epilepsy diagnosis as a covariate. Adjusted models included age, gender, heart, blood pressure, and antiseizure medications as covariates. The results showed that semantic memory performance was significantly associated with age but not HRV in either the unadjusted or adjusted models. In contrast, SDNN, RMSSD, low- and high-frequency power were all significant in the unadjusted models before and after Bonferroni correction, and in the adjusted models before but not after Bonferroni correction. Epilepsy group was not associated with semantic or procedural memory performance.

Our results indicate higher HRV could potentially be associated with better procedural memory performance, opening a possibility for further investigation in clinical and healthy populations.

Everyone is welcome to join the defence online!