A Study On Anterograde Amnesia

In Memento, Leonard Shelby, who is the main character of the story, has an anterograde amnesia due to the damage to his hippocampus. In fact, it does not mention which part of his brain is damaged in the movie, but in my opinion, his medial temporal lobe is impaired because of the deficits in long-term memory. He was attacked by one of the assailants that had broken into his house, and after the incident, his new memory can last only for 10 minutes. Though amygdala is located close to the hippocampus, it can be said that amygdala, which is closely related to emotion, is not impaired from the quote, “Just for revenge. That's what keeps me going. It's all I have” (Memento, Christopher Nolan).

“Alzheimer's disease is a progressive, degenerative disorder that attacks the brain's nerve cells, or neurons, resulting in loss of memory, thinking and language skills, and behavioral changes. These neurons, which produce the brain chemical, or neurotransmitter, acetylcholine, break connections with other nerve cells and ultimately die. For example, short-term memory fails when Alzheimer's disease first destroys nerve cells in the hippocampus” (Alzheimer’s Association Foundation.) The destruction of the hippocampus is very serious because the hippocampus is a structure in the brain’s limbic system that plays an important part role in memory (Ettinger 91.) Its is responsible for forming organizing and storing memories.It connects the memories to structures and senses like smell and sound. “The hippocampus is a horseshoe shaped paired structure, with one hippocampus located in the left brain hemisphere and the other in the right hemisphere. The hippocampus acts as a

Since it is close structurally to the hippocampus, the amygdala is involved in controlling memory consolidation, especially emotional memories; when a memory is emotionally charged, it has a better retention rate than one that is not. The hippocampus is generally seen as having an essential role in the creation of new memories about past experiences; it's even responsible for memories that can be verbalized also known as declarative memory. Damage to it result in difficulties in forming new memories and being able to access new memories formed before the

There are two main dimensions of amnesias. The first cause is physical or psychological; the second proceeds or follows a traumatic event. Most amnesia is a result either from organic or neurological causes (damage to the brain through physical injury, neurological disease or the use of certain drugs), The seriousness of the amnesia depends on the areas in which the brain is damaged. The second dimension is the dichotomy between forgetting the past versus an inability to form new memories. Terry, W. Scott. Learning and memory: basic principles, processes, and procedures. Boston, MA: Pearson, 2009. Print. Retrograde amnesia is not being able to remember events before the disorder. The amount of time that can't remember depends on the severity. Anterograde amnesia is the inability to form new memories, it is usually caused by severe brain trauma.

Amnesia can occur depending on the type and on the cause of amnesia. When the brain is injured, it can interfere with memories because it damages the brain structure that forms the limbic which is what controls the emotions and memories.This can affect many lives because the person could forget a distant relative to a family member as well as it might cause mood swings from being depressed into angry. There is amnesia called neurological amnesia. Neurological amnesia is when the brain gets damaged somehow and what will happen is memory's might get erased or lost. Neurological amnesia can be caused through stroke, seizures, lack of oxygen through the brain like heart attack and long term alcohol drinking. Another type of amnesia is dissociative

Anterograde amnesia is when a person loses the ability to remember newly learned information, but cannot remember everything from before developing amnesia (King, 2016). For instance, if a child was injured and acquired this type of amnesia they would only remember what was stored then when growing older. This leading me to believe that there is a storing dysfunction that could contribute to amnesia.

Hippocampus is a small, curved region, which exists in both hemispheres of the brain and plays a vital role in emotions, learning and acquisition of new information. It also contributes majorly to long term memory, which is permanent information stored in the brain. Although long term memory is the last information that can be forgotten, its impairment has become very common nowadays. The dysfunction is exemplified by many neurological disorders such as amnesia. There are two types of amnesia, anterograde and retrograde. Anterograde amnesia is inability in forming new information, while retrograde refers to the loss of the past memory. As suggested by Cipolotti and Bird (2006), hippocampus’s lesions are

Retrograde amnesia is a loss of memory-access to events that occurred, or information that was learned, before the injury of the diagnosis of the disease. The writer of this article goes through some of the factors of which he knows and thinks are important in explaining functional deficits associated with retrograde amnesia. I will be focusing on a few which are Functional Domains, Time of Onset, and Patients Age.

Some scientists believe that parts of long term memory are permanent while others will eventually weaken over time. (3) Long term memory can be divided into three sections: procedural memory, declarative memory, and remote memory. Procedural memory includes motor skills such as learning how to ride a bike or how to drive a car. "Such memories are slow to acquire but more resistant to change or loss." (4) Declarative memory is used to remember facts, such as names, dates and places. It is easy to learn but also easy to lose. Finally there is episodic memory, which is the record of events that a person stores throughout his or her experience. Recent studies show that these events, as soon as they occur, are sent to a temporary part of the brain called the hippocampus, and that over time they are moved to the neocortex for permanent storage. (5).

Anterograde amnesia refers to a memory deficit from brain injury that prevents patients to store new informations in their short term memories. The patients show normal memories for events that occurred before the injury but has severely impaired ability to recall information about events that occurred after the incident. Anterograde amnesia is reflected in the movie “50 first dates” through the main character, Lucy Whitmore, whose memory lasts only a day because her memory stopped on the day of car accident. (additional description) The movie, “50 first dates,” contains valid depiction of anterograde amnesia yet it also contains some dramatic points that is far from reality.

The temporal lobe plays an important role in episodic memory. Episodic memory represents the memory system that is used when we consciously remember a particular period in our lives and enables us to learn new information. Damage to the hippocampus in the predominant stages of Alzheimer’s fundamentally affects episodic memory. AD patients are not able to recall memory of recent events but are able to recall long term information. Semantic memory stores conceptual and factual knowledge, with the ability to recognise, name and categorized objects. These memories are not related to episodic memories. The semantic system includes the temporal lobes and multiples areas in the cortex and damage to these areas results in loss of recognition of common objects. Specific characteristics of semantic categories will deteriorate, first the ability to recognise fine categories, such as type of animal or type of object. The lack of refinement will lead to the ability to recognise general categories, such as animal rather than a specific type. The ability to learn cognitive and behaviour skills is known as procedural memory. Procedural memory is located in the cerebellum and here memories operate at an automatic and unconscious level. Working memory signifies the ability to momentarily preserve and control information that is needed in everyday life. Areas of the brain that are directly linked to memory are dramatically affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Without the ability to recall information one has previously learnt or store new memories, then one can not obtain new information and apply new or old skills. As the cerebellum is responsible balance and movement everyday things like walking will be difficult as Alzheimer’s suffers will lose their unconscious memory of how to to

Doctors and scientists dispute the exact role of the hippocampus, but agree that it has an essential role in the formation of new memories about personally experienced events. Some researchers prefer to consider the hippocampus as part of a larger medial temporal lobe memory system responsible for declarative memory. When a long-term, declarative memory is made, certain neuronal connections in the temporal lobe are strengthened, and others are weakened. These changes are fairly permanent, however some may take weeks or months before they are complete

Retrograde Amnesia is, being a common type of Amnesia, is the one most people are familiar with. Retrograde Amnesia is the loss of past memories. If someone falls and hits their head, the damage caused by that accident could cause the person to forget that the accident even occurred. For example, a friend once decided to try snowboarding, and did not learn how to stop before she went to the top of the hill. She went down, picking up speed, and did not notice the small cliff at the bottom until it was too late to turn away. She decided to fall so she would not go over the cliff, and while she was successful at that, she unfortunately hit her head on a patch of ice as she fell. She remained conscience, but lost not only the memory of the accident, she lost her memory of the entire week of the trip.

When she came back to her house from work, she noticed he wasn’t present in their home. He had left his house and was found wandering around the streets. When he was attended in the hospital, doctors discovered he had a virus that caused holes in his brain. This condition was called Encephalitis. This unfortunately left him with having anterograde and retrograde amnesia at the same time. His affected areas were thalamus, hypothalamus, temporal lobes, occipito-parietal and frontal lobes, and amygdala. His memory had last between 7-30 seconds. Clive had a spatial implicit memory. Within his emotional memory, he would gradually accept his condition. He was still surprisingly able to recall some of his procedural memory. Another patient who dealt with a similar situation of having both anterograde and retrograde amnesia was patient R.B. This patient had a reduction of blood to the brain, which was caused by a heart bypass surgery. His lacerations were restricted to the hippocampus. Thus, the result caused him to remain with an absence of memory

Without the hippocampus, the information from the short-term memory (STM) cannot be stored in long term memory (LTM). The hippocampus is a very important part of the human brain to store our memories. If we lost it, we will lose all our conscious memories. From Henry’s case, it also discovered that there are multiple memory storage areas located at different parts of the brain while the hippocampus is important to consolidate short-term memory to long-term memory. The removal of hippocampus caused Henry to suffer until he died as he lost the ability to make new conscious