The Effects Of Anterograde Amnesia And Its Diagnostic Criteria

However, her disorder is practically identical to a real form of amnesia known as anterograde amnesia. Patients suffering from anterograde amnesia lose the ability to recall memories made after the event which caused brain trauma. Anterograde amnesia is caused by damage to the hippocampus which is considered to be a key location for memory. This was discovered through the case of Henry Molaison, who had his hippocampus removed to stop severe seizures. The surgery cured Molaison but left him with acute memory loss. Lucy’s long term memory, sensory memory and procedural memory are all perfectly functioning, the damage is sustained to her short term memory and declarative memory. In addition, only her retrieval process appears to be performing incorrectly which is realistic as legitimate anterograde amnesia sufferers may manifest memories through other means such as the film’s example of dreams and

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.

Amnesia is typically defined as partial or total loss of memory. The occurrence of amnesia can arise at any age. Individuals who suffer from amnesia typically remain lucid and preserve their sense of self. Amnesiacs can obtain a perfectly normal appearance despite the amnesia. Moreover, they also have the capacity to read and comprehend words. Based on these facts, researchers have arrived at the conclusion that more than one area in the brain is used for storing facts.

Anterograde Amnesia is the inability to store new information after the brain damage has occurred. (Luke Mastin 2010). Anterograde Amnesia is very rare, in fact there have a few cases where the amnesia was "pure". The symptoms and hardship of the person depend on the cause for the memory loss. Some symptoms of Anterograde Amnesia are partial memory loss, having a hard time recognizing relatives or family, feeling of confusion, difficulty taking in new information, inability to remember familiar places, and difficulty in learning and remembering new things.(PHC Editorial Team 2013) Characteristics of Anterograde Amnesia are abnormally small hippocampi bilaterally and elevated hippocampal water.(Mayo Clinic 2014) There are many ways to recognize

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

It is apparent that patient H.M.’s memory has not been affected by any general intellectual loss. H.M has severe anterograde amnesia, but surprisingly has spared implicit memory. Implicit memory is a type of memory in which past experiences aid the presentation of a task without mindful awareness of the experiences. There have been many tests conducted on the patient to test this spared memory.

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.

Losing one’s memory can be a mysterious affliction, and the causes can be quite complex. Severe memory loss is introduced in author Oliver Sacks’ collection of stories The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and lectures given by professor Jim Davies can help with understanding of some of the concepts introduced in the book. In chapter two, The Lost Mariner, the patient Jimmie is suffering from aspects of both retrograde and anterograde amnesia, which Davies explained as loss of memory of events or facts learned before an event (the event that caused the amnesia), and loss of ability to create new memories after the event, respectively. In more detail, and in relation to our book (here, the target example), retrograde amnesia would consist of any loss of memory that happened prior to an event, such as an injury or onset of disease in Jimmie’s case. Dr. Davies’ explanation of retrograde amnesia helps to understand Jimmie’s case, where in the year 1975 he is unable to recall any events after 1945. As well, the explanation of anterograde amnesia as including symptoms such as inability to form new memories, learn information or tasks, or to recall the recent past is useful when applied to Jimmie’s experience of not being able to recall events that happened even a few minutes prior. Jimmie’s suffering from both retro and anterograde amnesia, as explained by Sacks, results from Korsakov’s syndrome – a destruction of memory caused by alcoholic

A couple of articles were able to explain more about anterograde amnesia. One of those articles was “Widespread cognitive impairment in psychogenic anterograde amnesia”. The article explains the experiments scientists are doing to try and find out what causes anterograde amnesia. According to the article “Retrograde psychogenic amnesia is common but anterograde psychogenic amnesia is rare” (cite). In order to attain anterograde psychogenic amnesia the person needs to have widespread cognitive impairment. Psychological stress can put a lot of strain on the body and brain. Sometimes stress even can cause people to break down. In order to explain a cause of anterograde amnesia scientist studied a 38-year-old man.

MEMENTO REVIEW Anterograde amnesia, in its defination, means is the loss of the ability to create new memories, leading to a partial or complete inability to recall the recent past, even though long-term memories from before the event which caused the amnesia remain intact. Sufferers may therefore repeat comments or questions several times, for example, or fail to recognize people they met just minutes before (Mastin, 2010). Anterograde amnesia affects the brains learning parts and some researches shows that riding a bike is not forgetten but the human who have anterograde amnesia forgets when he or she learned the ride a bike. Anterograde amnesia can be permanent disorder or temporarily disoreder.

Anterograde amnesia, as described earlier, is an inability to form lasting memories after some disturbance to the brain, such as a brain injury or degenerative brain disease. The revelation of the H.M. case was the identification of the medial temporal lobes as memory consolidation and storage centers. Within the medial temporal lobes, the hippocampus has been identified specifically as a brain area involved in learning new information (Gluck, 2014). To put it another way, people with damage to the hippocampus will have difficulty forming new memories because they won’t be able to learn new things. The hippocampus helps to integrate objects in a spatial and temporal context. Episodic and semantic memory forming is impaired, otherwise known as declarative memory, though the person can remember declarative memory from the past. The process of encoding, storage consolidation, and retrieval seems to go through the medial temporal lobe with the hippocampus playing a key role. In anterograde amnesia, the consolidation process is damaged. Thus, in the short term new information can be learned, but since it is not consolidated, it can’t be retrieved, so it is forgotten (Webbe slides). Additionally, damage to the basal forebrain can cause anterograde amnesia. This is because the basal forebrain sends neurotransmitters to the hippocampus to tell it whether and when to process and store information (Gluck, 2014). In this way, the hippocampus is the main brain structure involved so

In the movie 50 First Dates one of the main characters suffers from the severe condition of anterograde amnesia. The movie is about Henry Roth who is a wildlife veterinarian in Hawaii, meeting Lucy Whitmore a woman who has a short-term memory loss from an auto accident a year earlier. Henry meets Lucy at a local cafe and takes her out on a date. Henry falls in love with Lucy, but there is one problem when she awakens in the morning, she can't remember him or anything that happened that day. Henry must devise a plan to meet Lucy everyday and try to get her to fall in love with him again and again.

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).

In Chapter 12 of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Mr. William Thompson suffered from an extreme case of Korsakov’s, also known as Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (Sacks, 1985, p. 109). According to Anderson (2010), Korsakoff syndrome can cause serious damage to one’s hippocampus and temporal lobe due to habitual alcoholism, resulting in amnesia (p. 201). Similar to HM (Anderson, 2010, p. 200), Mr. Thompson suffered from anterograde amnesia and could remember nothing for more than a few brief moments (Sacks, p. 109). Anderson (2010) states that anterograde amnesia results in the incapability of creating new memories, leading to fractional or absolute inability to remember something that just happened (p. 201). Yet, one’s long-term memories before the incident remain intact; such as when Mr. Thompson recognized his younger brother, Bob, as he walked by the window (Sacks, 1985, p. 112-113). Mr. Thompson and HM both suffered from anterograde amnesia and could remember some long-term memories but not remember new ones, signifying that the neural makeup involved in making fresh memories are diverse from maintaining past memories (Anderson, 2010, p. 202).

(1). Therefore, once one sees something else or takes part in a new conversation is it difficult to remember all of the details from the one before. Declarative memory includes remembering facts one has used effort to learn in the past, and things one has tried to remember. The last part of memory, procedural memory, consists of everything one has learned by repetition, such as playing an instrument or sport, driving a car, or walking.