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Understanding Amnesia and Memory Loss

Memory is essential for basic human functions like driving, conversations, reading, and cooking. Cases of memory loss attract attention because people underestimate how important memory is. There are different types of memory impairment like amnesia where people lose the ability to form new memories or recall past events. Famous patients like HM helped researchers understand how damage to parts of the brain like the hippocampus can disrupt different memory functions, as HM could no longer learn new information after his surgery. The case of another patient, EP, showed that severe brain damage can completely prevent new learning and also cause modest impairment in general knowledge. In summary, memory allows people to encode, store, and retrieve information over time, and any mistakes or brain damage could disrupt this

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Anastasiya Kravchenko
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19 views1 page

Understanding Amnesia and Memory Loss

Memory is essential for basic human functions like driving, conversations, reading, and cooking. Cases of memory loss attract attention because people underestimate how important memory is. There are different types of memory impairment like amnesia where people lose the ability to form new memories or recall past events. Famous patients like HM helped researchers understand how damage to parts of the brain like the hippocampus can disrupt different memory functions, as HM could no longer learn new information after his surgery. The case of another patient, EP, showed that severe brain damage can completely prevent new learning and also cause modest impairment in general knowledge. In summary, memory allows people to encode, store, and retrieve information over time, and any mistakes or brain damage could disrupt this

Uploaded by

Anastasiya Kravchenko
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Memory is an integral part of human existence.

Without memory, we would not be able, for example, to


drive to work, hold a meaningful conversation with our relatives, read a book, or prepare a meal. People
who do not have any problems with remembering tend to underestimate the essentiality of memory
processes. That is why cases of memory lost attract public and researchers attention.
Understanding memory failings can help researchers work out how we form and retain memories. For
example, the "amnesic syndrome" (also known as classical amnesia) is one of the purest forms
of memory impairment. People with retrograde amnesia lose their ability to recall events before the brain
injury. If they have anterograde amnesia, they cannot form new memories after the injury. However, the
amnesic syndrome does not affect all forms of memory.
For example, patient HM is widely regarded as the most famous amnesiac patient in history. His case
played a very important role in the development of theories that explain the link between brain function
and memory. Because the patient was suffering from epilepsy, his hippocampal formation was removed.
As a result, some of his memory functions were impaired. He could not learn new words, songs or faces
after his surgery, forgot who he was talking to as soon as he turned away, didn't know how old he was or
if his parents were alive or dead, and never again clearly remembered an event, such as his birthday
party, or who the current president of the United States was. In contrast, he did retain the ability to learn
some new motor skills. Also, his apparent ability to complete tasks that requires recall from short-
term and procedural memory but not long-term episodic memory suggests that recall processes from
these memory systems may be mediated.
In addition, the case of another famous amnesiac patient known as EP provides some surprising findings
concerning how our memory system functions, and how this system breaks down. He did not only lose the
ability to form new memories, EP suffered a modest impairment in his semantic knowledge - the
knowledge of things like words and the names of objects. Due to the total destruction of specific
memory-linked brain structures, EP was utterly unable to learn anything new.
To summarize, each person possesses a unique and effective memory device that encode information in
a storable form, retain that information faithfully and enable it to be accessed at later point. A mistake in
any of these components or any brain damage could lead to failure of a coherent mechanism and change
the existing functioning of individual.

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