HM

Question 1

What happened to HM in early life?

Answer 1

• age 9 - run over by a cyclist - got epilepsy
• age 16 - seizures more frequent and much worse - very high dose of medication didn’t help seizures

Question 2

What happened for his operation?

Answer 2

• EEG scans showed no area of the brain to be epileptic - operation required
• age 27 - operation never been done before but himself, family and doctor deemed it justifiable
• removed 2/3 of hippocampus

Question 3

How was he after the operation?

Answer 3

no personality change but severe memory loss

Question 4

What was the impact of the operation?

Answer 4

• hippocampus forms new memories - he could no longer form new memories
• could learn skills but couldn’t remember them
• memory of events before age 16 completely intact
• had anterograde and retrograde amnesia - couldn’t form memories or recall memories from age 25 onwards

Question 5

What happened after his death?

Answer 5

Brian given to psychological research and was cut into over 2000 pieces

Question 6

How has HM contributed to understanding of memory?

Answer 6

• the fact he could no longer make new memories tells us that there are seperate stores for STM and LTM

Question 7

Strength

Answer 7

Eco val - case studies occur naturally - no ethical guidelines breached as his operation was done to ease epilepsy and consent was provided for this to occur

Question 8

Weaknesses

Answer 8

• Ethics - HM was tested for 55 years of his life - intrusive to HM as he did not rememeber giving consent
• Generalisability - unique case where results may not represent memory loss in wider population - level of brain damage will never occur again - usefulness questioned