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
