A new study on infantile memory formation in rats points to the importance of critical periods in early-life learning on functional development of the brain. The research, conducted by scientists at New York University's ...
Jul 18, 2016
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Neuroscientists have discovered a fascinating connection between the retention of early life memories and brain developmental trajectories associated with autism.
Nov 8, 2023
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How and when the ability to form and store memories arises are topics of great interest to neuroscientists. Now Yale researchers have identified three distinct stages in brain development that occur before episodic memories ...
Jan 11, 2019
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People may have to "turn on" their memories in order to remember even the simplest details of an experience, according to Penn State psychologists. This finding, which has been named "attribute amnesia," indicates that memory ...
Jan 21, 2015
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A study led by Professor James Russell shines a light on the phenomenon of 'infantile amnesia'. He argues that children's ability to recall events depends on their being able to unify the environmental elements of when, what ...
Dec 1, 2014
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(Medical Xpress)—The very earliest childhood memories might begin even earlier than anyone realized – including the rememberer, his or her parents and memory researchers.
Apr 10, 2014
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It’s one of the most common plot twists in Hollywood — caught red-handed, the murderer claims to suffer from multiple personality disorder, says he has no memory of the crime, and points the finger at an alternate ...
Aug 20, 2012
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A 22-year-old woman known as "HC" with amnesia since birth as a result of developing only half the normal volume of the hippocampus in her brain, has demonstrated to scientists that the ability to hold a single face or word ...
Nov 9, 2011
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(Medical Xpress) -- The term mind-blowing has been used to describe great sexual encounters for many generations, but for one 54-year-old woman, sex with her husband really was mind-blowing.
(Medical Xpress) -- German researchers working out of the Institute of Neuroradiology, University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, University of Kiel, have found through the study of a rare form of temporary amnesia, that impairment ...
Amnesia (from Greek Ἀμνησία) is a condition in which one's memory is lost. The causes of amnesia have traditionally been divided into categories. Memory appears to be stored in several parts of the limbic system of the brain, and any condition that interferes with the function of this system can cause amnesia. Functional causes are psychological factors, such as mental disorder, post-traumatic stress or, in psychoanalytic terms, defense mechanisms. Amnesia may also appear as spontaneous episodes, in the case of transient global amnesia.
However, there are different types of memory, for example procedural memory (i.e. automated skills) and declarative memory (personal episodes or abstract facts), and often only one type is impaired. For example, a person may forget the details of personal identity, but still retain a learned skill such as the ability to play the piano.
In addition, the terms are used to categorize patterns of symptoms rather than to indicate a particular cause (etiology). Both categories of amnesia can occur together in the same patient, and commonly result from drug effects or damage to the brain regions most closely associated with episodic memory: the medial temporal lobes and especially the hippocampus.
An example of mixed retrograde and anterograde amnesia may be a motorcyclist unable to recall driving his motorbike prior to his head injury (retrograde amnesia), nor can he recall the hospital ward where he is told he had conversations with family over the next two days (anterograde amnesia).
The effects of amnesia can last long after the condition has passed. Some sufferers claim that their amnesia changes from a neurological condition to also being a psychological condition, whereby they lose confidence and faith in their own memory and accounts of past events.
Another effect of some forms of amnesia may be impaired ability to imagine future events. A 2006 study showed that future experiences imagined by amnesiacs with bilaterally damaged hippocampus lacked spatial coherence, and the authors speculated that the hippocampus may bind different elements of experience together in the process of re-experiencing the past or imagining the future.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
