Amnesia Flashcards
What is amnesia?
Loss of memory and/or learning due to some kind damage to the brain
What is anterograde amnesia?
Inability to form new (long-term or short-term memories)
What is retrograde amnesia?
Inability to retrieve memories from the past
What did HM have removed?
What was he unable to do?
What did this help to identify?
Bilateral Medial Temporal Lobes
Acquire new declarative memories
Medial temporal lobes as a key region in declarative memory
What is located in temporal lobes?
The hippocampus
What did HM have preserved?
What could he not do?
What is global amnesia?
Memory of the past and good working memory
Form new LTM
Affects all sensory modalities
Anterograde amnesia
What were there problems with?
Declarative memory
What is explicit (declarative) memory?
Requires conscious recall e.g. What did I eat for dinner last night
What is implicit (procedural) memory?
Doesn’t require conscious recall e.g. Walking, riding a bike
What amnesia did KC have?
Targeting what?
Anterograde
Only episodic memory spared semantic memory
What is episodic memory?
Recall of personal info
What is semantic memory?
Recall of facts
What does the inability to retrieve episodic memories lead to?
Are the same brain areas involved?
Problems imaging the future
Yes
What was the initial concept of RA?
How are memories lost? What are older memories? What are younger memories?
What is Ribot’s law?
It was graded
Backwards
Stronger
Weaker (temporally graded)
Arguments in favour of the notion of consolidation
What does graded or ungraded retrograde amnesia depend on?
What is area of the brain is graded?
What areas of the brain are ungraded?
Anatomical location of brain damage
Medial temporal lobe
Lateral and anterior temporal lobe
What is Korsakoff’s syndrome?
What does it cause?
What is it a loss of?
What can it improve with?
Is there an area of specific damage?
Thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency due to alcohol abuse
Both AA and RA
Temporal sequence and confusion
Thiamine transfusions
No
What is hypoxia?
What does it lead to?
What is common?
What can children with hypnosis still do? Applying what?
Consequence of reduced oxygen supply to the brain
Hippocampal damage
AA for episodic info
Perform in school
Semantic info
What is transient global amnesia?
What may it follow? When is it more common?
What is more common?
What is it the temporary dysfunction of?
Temporary (4-12 hours) confusion and loss of memory
A traumatic event
It is more common in old age
AA but RA (episodic) more variable during acute phase
Limbic-hippocampal network
What is Alzheimer’s disease?
Leading to what?
Plaques and neurofibrillary tangles
Medial-temporal lobe (hippocampus) atrophy
What is Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy?
Repetitive head traumas and neurofibrillary tangles
