Accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF) is a memory disorder that manifests by a distinct pattern of normal memory for up to an hour after learning, but an increased rate of forgetting during the subsequent hours and days. The topic of ALF has gained much attention in group studies with epilepsy patients and the phenomenon has been shown to have contradictory associations with seizures, epileptiform activity, imaging data, sleep, and antiepileptic medication. The aim of this review was to explore how clinical and imaging data could help determine the topographic and physiological substrate of ALF, and what is the possible use of this information in the clinical setting. We have reviewed 51 group studies in English to provide a synthesis of the existing findings concerning ALF in epilepsy. Analysis of recently reported data among patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, transient epileptic amnesia, and generalized and extratemporal epilepsies provided further indication that ALF is likely a disorder of late memory consolidation. The spatial substrate of ALF might be located along the parts of the hippocampal-neocortical network and novel studies reveal the increasingly possible importance of damage in extrahippocampal sites. Further research is needed to explore the mechanisms of cellular impairment in ALF and to develop effective methods of care for patients with the disorder.
Keywords: accelerated long-term forgetting; epilepsy; memory impairment; temporal lobe epilepsy; transient epileptic amnesia.