Impaired source memory in Huntington's disease and its relation to basal ganglia atrophy

Memory for contrived facts and the source of those facts was assessed in a group of early-stage HD patients and an age- and education-equated group of healthy control subjects. Fact recall did not differ significantly between the groups, but erroneous source attributions were more common among the HD patients. Like individuals with frontal lobe damage, HD patients have impaired memory for the source of learned information. Volume of the left caudate nucleus on MRI scans correlated with fact recall and source memory measures. These results suggest that this nucleus, or its neocortical projections, play an important role in the coding of context.