The case of patient H.M. or Henry Molaison is a very interesting one. Henry Molaison was born on February 26th, 1926 and suffered from epilepsy most likely caused from a bike accident he had when he was young, although it is disputed his actual age of when the accident happened. Henry suffered from partial seizures up until he was 16 when he began to experience several grand mal seizures, a seizure that affects the whole brain. In 1953 Henry was referred to Dr. William Beecher Scoville, a neurosurgeon at Hartford Hospital for treatment. To treat Henry’s seizures Dr. Scoville suggested surgical removal of Henry’s right and left medial temporal lobes. On September 1st, 1953, Dr. Scoville operated on a 27 year old Henry Molaison, removing Henry’s …show more content…
Before surgery Henry had no memory problems to speak of and after surgery Henry’s anterograde amnesia, which is being unable to form new memories, and temporary retrograde amnesia, can be used as evidence that the medial temporal lobes are a major part of forming new long term …show more content…
Although Henry had anterograde amnesia, during intelligence test that were performed on him he scored in the normal range proving that some memory functions, such as short term memory, were not affected by the removal of the medial temporal lobe. In the early 1960s Dr. Brenda Milner conducted a study in which Henry was able to learn new motor skills; Henry acquired the new skill of drawing a figure by looking at its reflection in a mirror. In another study carried out by Suzanne Corkin to test intact motor learning, Henry was tested on three motor learning tasks and demonstrated full motor learning abilities in all of them. These tests prove that long term memories are not a single type but can be divvied into two different types, which are explicit and implicit. Explicit memories involve memories that use the consciousness while implicit involves memories that are unconscious. Corkin’s studies of Henry’s memory abilities have also provided evidence of how the neural structures work. Neural structures are responsible for spatial memory and processing of spatial information. Despite his general inability to form new episodic or long-term memories, episodic memories are an autobiographical time line such as times, places and associated emotions and well as his failure on certain spatial memory tests, Henry was able to draw a
Michael “Meeko” Thompson has spent more than two decades locked away in the Chippewa Correctional Facility. Michael was arrested for selling three pounds of cannabis to an undercover officer. He had prior drug offenses, but no history of violence. When his house was raided after his arrest, a few antique firearms and one usable firearm were recovered. Despite the fact that the antiques did not fire and the one that did was owned by Michael’s wife, he was convicted of felony possession of a firearm along with his cannabis charges. This was his fourth offense which labeled him a habitual offender, and he was sentenced to 40-60 years in prison. He could have been sentenced to as little as five years. Notably, even the Michigan Supreme Court
Marvin Pickering was a science high school teacher in Will County, Illinois. Pickering was dismissed from his job after he wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper, Lockport Harold. The letter was sarcastically criticizing the way his superintendent and school board raised and spent funds. The superintendent and school board took offense to the comments within the letter and dismissed Marvin Pickering from his teaching job.
Hippocampus is a small, curved region, which exists in both hemispheres of the brain and plays a vital role in emotions, learning and acquisition of new information. It also contributes majorly to long term memory, which is permanent information stored in the brain. Although long term memory is the last information that can be forgotten, its impairment has become very common nowadays. The dysfunction is exemplified by many neurological disorders such as amnesia. There are two types of amnesia, anterograde and retrograde. Anterograde amnesia is inability in forming new information, while retrograde refers to the loss of the past memory. As suggested by Cipolotti and Bird (2006), hippocampus’s lesions are responsible for both types of amnesia. According to multiple trace theory, the author suggests that hippocampal region plays a major role in effective retrieving of episodic memory (Cipolotti and Bird, 2006). For example, patients with hippocampal damage show extensively ungraded retrograde amnesia (Cipolotti and Bird, 2006). They have a difficult time in retrieving information from their non-personal episodic events and autobiographical memory. However, this theory conflicts with standard model of consolidation. The difference between these theories suggests that researchers need to do more work to solve this controversy. Besides retrieving information, hippocampus is also important in obtaining new semantic information, as well as familiarity and recollection (Cipolotti and Bird, 2006). For instance, hippocampal amnesic patient V.C shows in ability to acquire new semantic knowledge such as vocabularies and factual concepts (Cipolotti and Bird, 2006). He is also unable to recognize and recall even...
Kenneth Edelin was a 35 year old third year medical resident at the Boston City Hospital. This hospital was known for many poor coming into it. This was also a place for research. By this time research was still being conducted on fetuses and embryos. When a patient came to the hospital for an abortion she also signed a waiver for them to test on her. They called her “Alice Roe” and she was only 17 years old but had the consent of her mother to proceed with the abortion.This patient was estimated by the supervisor over the residents, Hugh Holtrop, to be about twenty-two weeks pregnant but the other residents Enrique Giminez and Steve Teich disagreed. They estimated that she was about twenty-four weeks pregnant. Edlein was put in charge of doing the
Henry (Harrison Ford) suffered injuries to his brain after being shot in the head when he went to go buy cigarettes from a local shop. When he was shot, the bullet went into his right frontal lobe; the part of the brain that is responsible for decision making and language. Henry was also shot in his subclavian artery, which brought him into cardiac arrest and eventually anoxia. Due to the bullet to the head, Henry’s loss of memory has affected his social behavior by causing him to act less educated than he used to as well as by making him feel uncomfortable around people that he knew before the accident. His work life and family life were changed due to him not being able to remember his own family, co-workers, or what to do at his own job.
In the movie Regarding Henry, Henry Turner (Harrison Ford) is shot in the head twice when he walked into a convenience store while it was being robbed. He wakes up from a coma and has apparently lost all of his memory. After the accident he is pretty much like a child learning everything all over again. He doesn’t remember his friends, coworkers, or even who his family are and what roles they play in his life and in his family.
Tate, R. L., & Pfaff, A., Jurjevic, L. (2000)Resolution of disorientation and amnesia during post-traumatic amnesia. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, 68, 178-185
The hippocampus has been associated with memory formation and consolidation, through lesions studies of bilateral medial temporal lobectomy patients, such as the famously amnesic H.M. In 1971 with the discovery of place cells by O’Keefe and Dostrovsky, spatial navigation was recognised as one of the primary roles of the hippocampus, with their 1978 book ‘The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map' O’Keefe and Nadel’s hypothesis has since commanded great influence in the field.
The first patient I saw was a 14 month old boy who sustained a non-accidental head injury. He underwent surgery in July that relieved the excess pressure and fluid around his brain, resulting in him becoming a left hemiplegic.
As depicted in The One Memory of Flora Banks, past events can greatly impact the remainder of your journey through life. Patients who suffer from Anterograde Amnesia lose the ability to create new memories as a result of a past incident. They are unable to recall recent events, while long-term memories from prior to the event are still there. Despite this terrible condition, patients must somehow find ways to cope or overcome their daily struggles or obstacles. In Emily Barr’s novel, Flora Banks, the main character, suffers from this same disorder and has had no short-term memory ever since the removal of her brain tumor.
As brain systems begin working, memory also starts to work. (4). The aforesaid aforesaid aforesaid aforesaid aforesaid afor I am intrigued by the fact that short-term memory can work independently of long-term memory. While long-term memory can be achieved through the repetition of a fact that is in the short-term memory, it appears that in amnesiac patients their long-term memory tends to return faster than their short-term memory. They can remember their favorite childhood food, but cannot remember why they are in the hospital.
“The Vow” is a movie that encases the turmoil and hardship associated with retrograde amnesia and the classic symptoms and steps associated with recovering and potentially regaining lost memory. Taking into account the information gained through multiple sources; such as, lecture of Mental Health, medical databases, and the personal experiences of Krickett Carpenter, the Vow provides both an accurate and inaccurate depiction of retrograde amnesia.
Henry Gustav Molaison is known to have one of the most significant brain injuries in neurological history. Molaison is one of the most famous patients who have had a severe memory loss in where it effected his life tremendously. To protect his identity Molaison went by the nickname H.M. throughout his whole ordeal and case study. At nine years old, Molaison fell and bumped his on the concrete after being hit by a bicyclist in his neighborhood near Hartford, Connecticut. It wasn’t until eighteen years after Molaison underwent a rare operation for his injury. Meanwhile, after the surgery H.M. began to have severe amnesia and could not remember numerous events in his life. H.M. is a mysterious case study which raises questions on how memory is
Henry Molaison or known as HM contributes to the deep understanding of memory by previous scientists and until now. His case had been a huge research and discussions among the well known scientists during his time and these results in the study of memories. Henry Molaison is living with a severe epilepsy where he need to undergo a surgery as medications were no longer gave him effects for his disease. So, his surgeon William Beecher Scoville suction out both of his hippocampus and when he got recovered from the surgery, his doctor realised that, Henry was having amnesia and seek him for another doctor. What confusing the doctors is that, even though the surgery was a success where Henry seizures decreasing; he is now facing dense memory loss. Then, once it was realized that the hippocampus plays a crucial roles for memory; the surgery of removing hippocampus was then banned for all and this brings to deep study of memory and hippocampus.
Highlighting this concept is the case of Susie Mckinnon, who lacks episodic memory. Though she lacks episodic memory, she does have intact semantic memory, which is another form of explicit long term memory. The WIRED article by Erika Hayasaki, reflects Mckinnon’s unique perspective and how she was able to become aware of her deficiency, as she was not uniquely aware something was wrong with her until high school and further research. By analyzing Mckinnon’s case in respect to the findings of Allen and Fortin, this allows one to understand why episodic memory is evolutionarily important for functionality and interactions in daily life.