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Amnesia Study

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Amnesia, as an organic clinical disorder caused by brain damages, refers to permanent disturbance of declarative memory despite preserved cognitive functions (Markowitsch, 2001; Moscovitch, 2004). Patients with anterograde amnesia (AA) consistently show different degrees of impairment in forming declarative memory, with normal implicit and working memory. Studying amnesia provides insights on cognitive and biological mechanism underling memory, and a representative model is vital for understanding existing data and making predictions. Although researches on amnesia have progressed a lot since the famous case of H.M., a convincing and widely accepted model has yet to be established. One of the main debates concerning it is whether the major …show more content…

Apart from the models themselves, external factors have also posed difficulties in determining whether one of them is better. Although declarative memory could be subdivided, the interdependent nature of the subcomponents makes it difficult to test them separately in a clean way. Furthermore, difficulty in making accurate predictions is also a barricade. To predict impairments from brain lesions, it is essential to localize the neural substrates of memory in the corresponding brain regions. However, the plasticity of brain and adoption of compensatory strategies make it difficult to map the impairments and preserved abilities in brain. In this essay, the associative model proposed by Squire and the dissociative model proposed by Aggleton and Brown (A&B) would be used to illustrate the difficulties in determining whether one of them better describes amnesia. It is argued that both of them are inconclusive in explaining all the of existing data. Moreover, the interdependent nature of subtypes within declarative memory and plasticity of brain make both of the models not testable or

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The determined progress of United powers in 1944 and 1945 accomplished a triumph, so entire as to keep any restoration of the crushed administrations. Albeit celebrated with equity by the victors, it was picked up at a gigantic cost to all of Europe. The abundances of the Soviet powers, which assaulted and plundered their way through eastern Australia are currently well known,4 however for a long time this went unrecognized by western scholars. In the event that the lead of the western Partners was far prevalent, add up to war can't be pursued without leaving devastation and an enormous loss of non military personnel life afterward and, what one creator has called, "aggregate amnesia",5 has darkened the expenses of freedom as armed forces battled

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At the time the physician removed parts of his hippocampus as a way to stop his seizures. HM seizures went away, but he could not form any new memories. However, one form of memory left intact in both HM and Leonard is the ability to learn skills. This ability is known as procedural memory, a memory that is shown by performance rather than by conscious recollection (Kalat, 1998), it allows us to learn how to do things such as ride a bike or play an instrument. The areas of the brain outside of the hippocampus are involved in procedural memory, which is why an injury that results in anterograde amnesia doesn't affect procedural memory.

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Memory is an important aspect of life as you are able to remember old memories and create new ones as well. In this paper, the focus is primarily on dementia. Declarative memory, procedural memory, and recall are various topics that are used to understand the roles they may play in dementia. Each topic is discussed in a paragraph. In each paragraph I introduce and explain the topic, then provide an example from the movie, The Notebook (Emmerich, Harris, Johnson, Kaplan, & Cassavetes, 2014).

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It is thought that the hippocampus works with the amygdala, which is another important part of the limbic system responsible for fear and for storing memories of events for future recognition. Thus both the hippocampus and the limbic system play essential roles in human memory. Experts believe the hippocampus may work as a gateway through which new memories pass to enter to the permanent long-term memory storage.5 It is generally agreed that the hippocampus also has part of the role of detecting new surroundings, occurrences and stimuli. Some scientists believe it is specifically involved in declarative memory (explicit memory), which is one of the two main types of memory into which long-term memory is divided, and consists of facts, events and performance skills that can be consciously recalled or declared.

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“In truth [memory] no longer represents our past to us, … if it still deserves the name of memory, it is because it prolongs their useful effect into the present moment.” (Bergson, 1910). This is a powerful statement with regards to amnesiac patients. KC suffered brain damage, and consequently amnesia, after a motorbike accident. “… KC may be said to have global anterograde amnesia (AA), and episodic retrograde amnesia (RA)”,

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There are two types of long term memory declarative and procedural. Longterm declarative memory is stored in the hippocampus of the brain, any damage to this part of the brain would cause one the inability to form new memories. Procedure memories are stored in the cerebellum (Parts of Brain 2015) . Working memory and the ability to retrieve information is in the prefrontal cortex. Also in the prefrontal lobe, different parts than the working memory, is the semantic and episodic memory.

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Declarative (explicit) memory is the memory of facts/events that can be consciously recalled. When it comes to these memories, the hippocampus is critical for memory formation. Additionally, the hippocampus plays a vital role in short-term memory which is necessary for long-term memory to be established. On the other hand, non-declarative (implicit) memory is the memory of skills and how to do things. One case that shows we know that the hippocampus is not necessary to form new non-declarative (implicit) memory is Henry Molaison who appeared to have anterograde amnesia.

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593 Words | 3 Pages

Henry had severe seizures growing up and later had his hippocampus removed. The hippocampus is a part of the brain that helps store long-term memories. After the procedure, Henry could not retain any new memories due to the procedure. However, he could recognize his mother’s face, which means he was able to recall his long-term memory. Given this information, it was believed that the hippocampus played a role in creating new memories.

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After reading an article by Endel Tulving, he talks about memory retrieval with regards to the human brain. He states in his thesis "The purpose of the present article is to question the traditional view that remembering the past and knowing things learned in the past represent similar cognitive processes" (Tulving, 1989). He continues by saying "I would suggest that remembering and knowing, as these terms are used here, are more appropriately conceptualized as operations of two hypothetical memory systems, episodic and semantic memory, and that in that sense they are not only similar, as all memory systems must be, but also basically different" (Tulving, 1989). In Tulving's first piece of evidence to support the above thesis he uses an example of a case study.

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Anterograde amnesia is defined as the inability to create new memories after a specific event that signals the start of amnesia. In the movie Dory, is constantly having to be reminded of memories that just occurred and is often forgetting things. Dory can remember rudimentary things that happened up to a certain point in her life but after that point, remembering memories becomes a challenge. According to research, the character Dory serves as a fairly accurate. One aspect of anterograde amnesia that is shown in this film is the importance of repetition.

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1264 Words | 6 Pages

(2007) all underwent neuroradiological and neurophysiological exams to determine the presence of brain damage and confirm the form of amnesia they had. The results were consistent in that the case study with PA showed no brain damage while the OA case studies did show brain damage in the frontal lobes and hippocampus. Yet, only one PA case study is looked at while there are two OA cases in the Serra et al. (2007) paper, this isn’t a large sample. A problem encountered with finding case studies to compare is that individuals suffering from the amnesia being investigated can be rare and so finding larger samples is very difficult.

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693 Words | 3 Pages

Yet now in chapter fourteen we are informed that there is another form of amnesia called dissociative amnesia and that “dissociative amnesia is a kid of memory loss that is psychologically caused” (Lahey, 2012). I am understandably confused is amnesia now a biological or psychological, or is it primarily biological with dissociative being only temporarily and specially applied to cause for dissociative amnesia only after a sever period of intense

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1358 Words | 6 Pages

This is what other researchers have thought of too, and therefore a conclusion was made that additional processes have been taking place as well. Another strength is that there is neuropsychological evidence for this model as a patient, HM (Milner, 1966) underwent surgery which impaired his hippocampus and in turn affected his long-term memory as it no longer functioned properly, whereas his short-term memory was rather functional. Due to this we can conclude that these two processes are involved in the process of memory, as one of the stores was affected when the brain was damaged but the other was not (Baddeley, 2009).

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1648 Words | 7 Pages

The biological approach to the basis of memory is explained in terms of underlying biological factors such as the activity of the nervous system, genetic factors, biochemical and neurochemicals. In general terms memory is our ability to encode, store, retain and recall information and past experiences afterwards in the human brain. In biological terms, memory is the recreation of past experiences by simultaneous activation or firing of neurons. Some of the major biopsychological research questions on memory are what are the biological substrates of memory, where are memories stored in the brain, how are memories assessed during recall and what is the mechanism of forgetting. The two main reasons that gave rise to the interest in biological basis of memory are that researchers became aware of the fact that many memory deficits arise from injuries to the brain.

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One famous case of amnesia supporting Squire's view is patient H.M. (Scoville & Milner, 1957), who had parts of his left and right temporal lobe, hippocampus, amygdala and surrounding areas of both removed. He developed severe anterograde amnesia, the inability to learn new information, resulting in an almost completely absent short-term memory storage. He also had moderate retrograde amnesia, unable to remember information between 3 to 11 years prior to his surgery, but with other long-term memories unaffected. Explaining this, Squire argued that memories are consolidated in the hippocampus, easily disrupted by trauma during this. They become less dependent on the hippocampus with time, eventually being stored in the neocortex (Alvarez &

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