![]() Most of this-the color of a pebble in the driveway, the number of swallows it took to finish a glass of orange juice in the morning-is information a person will never need. A huge amount of information goes into the brain every day. Just as the brain is a master at remembering, it is also very good at forgetting, even when a person does not have amnesia. Amnesia leaves most people nearly whole and mostly normal-except for a chunk of missing memories. Damage to one part of the brain may wipe out one type of memory but not others. Scientists use these facts as proof that the memory process involves most or all of the brain. But for some reason, implicit memories, the skills and habits a person does without thinking, are rarely lost. Some people lose explicit knowledge-the facts and the memories of specific experiences that make up their personal history. Some lose the ability to form short-term memories and learn new things. ![]() ![]() One of the most puzzling things about any kind of amnesia is that it usually only affects certain kinds of memory. Sometimes, patients and their doctors must simply wait to see which memories return and which do not. Understanding which part of the brain has been damaged, whether by accident or illness, sometimes helps doctors figure out what type of memory a patient with amnesia has lost. The amnesia that affected HM so that he could not learn or remember anything new was very different from the amnesia that affected the young man in the snowbank, who could learn and remember everything after his accident but nothing before. There are, however, different types of memory, so there are also different types of amnesia. Memory Loss Comes in Many FormsĪmnesia is a very general word describing any loss of memory. People suffering from amnesia are victims of a very perplexing problem that may have no solution. The process of how it makes and stores memories is not well understood, and therefore, the way memories are lost is also not well understood. They have lost a chunk of memory, and with it, part or all of their identity. What could be more interesting than a person who wanders into town with no idea who he is or how he got there? The reality is that people with amnesia are just regular people with an unusual problem. This is one of very few true stories of amnesia that reads like a book or a movie script, but it is easy to see why there are so many movies about amnesia. “I just want to have my memory back,” he said. He was taken in by a woman who gave him a place to stay until he could remember who he was or until his family could find him-if he had a family at all. The man had no memory of his name, where he was from, how he had ended up in the snowbank, or anything else that had happened to him before he was discovered lying dazed in the snow. He was treated at a hospital and was then sent to a homeless shelter. On January 12, 2005, a young man in his late teens was found in a dirty snowbank in the town of Weymouth, Massachusetts. Retrograde Amnesia: The Loss of Memories Themselves What Is Amnesia? Memory Loss Comes in Many FormsĪnteretrograde Amnesia: The Loss of Memory-Making Abilities
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