Causes Of Amnesia

Amnesia is the general term for a condition in which memory either stored memories or the process of committing something to memory is disturbed or lost. Amnesia may result either from organic or neurological causes or damage to the brain through physical injury, neurological disease or the use of certain drugs. It could also come from functional or psychogenic causes such as mental disorder, post-traumatic stress or psychological defense mechanisms. Many kinds of amnesia are associated with damage to the hippocampus and related areas of the brain which are used in the encoding, storage and retrieval of memories. If there is a blockage in the pathways along which information travels during the processes of memory encoding or retrieval, or if

This can be because data does not transfer successfully from short-term memory into permanent long-term memory. It is often a permanent condition generally thought to be caused by damage to the hippocampus section of the brain. This damage can be caused by an accident, surgery, alcohol, and even an acute deficiency of thiamine known as Korsakoff’s syndrome. Which is a chronic memory disorder caused by severe deficiency of thiamine better known as the vitamin B-1.

Sometimes both these types of amnesia may occur together, sometimes called total or global amnesia. Another type of amnesia is post-traumatic amnesia, a state of confusion and memory loss that occurs after a traumatic brain injury. Amnesia which occurs due to psychological factors is usually referred to as psychogenic amnesia. In most cases, amnesia is a temporary condition, lasting from a few seconds to a few hours, but the duration can be longer depending on the severity of the disease or trauma, up to a few weeks or even months. Although it is very rare for anyone to experience total or permanent

Sensory memory and short-term memory work in cooperation to help the brain store information for later recall. When information is first received by means of one of the five senses it is retained for a very brief period in the sensory registers. The amount of time that information is stored in the sensory registers is so short that it cannot properly be termed memory. What causes us to truly remember information for later use is the short-term memory. Some of the information collected by the five sensory registers is subsequently passed into the short-term memory, but most sensory information is discarded. This is a good thing since otherwise the brain would become bombarded with a constant stream of