What Was The Cause Of Clive Wearing's Amnesia?

Clive Wearing was a prolific British musical conductor and producer for BBC. He was a wildly intelligent and successful person. It came as a surprise to himself and his family when unexpectedly suffered a loss of consciousness. The type of memory loss that Clive Wearing has is retrograde and anterograde amnesia. He is unable to retain new memories; he is also unable to unearth past memories to his consciousness as well. The cause for Wearing’s amnesia is viral encephalitis, from the herpes simplex. If this virus travels to the brain it can cause swelling which leads to the brain crushing against the skull. The encephalitis affected various parts of the brain which includes the temporal lobes, the left frontal lobe, and the occipito- parietal lobe. The hippocampus, which is found in the temporal lobe, is completely destroyed affecting the function of memory. The thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala, and the hippocampus are structures in the brain that enables us to remember, recall and creates new memories. Wearing showed specific symptoms of his memory loss. He would repeat himself often and exhibit moment to moment consciousness. He often showed extremely emotional behavior like fits of rage. After a period of about two minutes he felt that he was awake for the first time, he

He often forgot the last thing he said and repeated himself often. Wearing could not describe his wife’s appearance but he recognized her once he saw her. He was unable to recall events that happened to him in the past. Wearing was able to sing, play and read music because of muscle memory. He was able to remember his wife and the love that he had for her. Wearing remembered that he was married, and he remembered the names of his children. Clive was also able to remember implicit memories as a result of conditioning. He responds to stimuli like his diary in which he records his