Retrograde Amnesia

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1. Describe anterograde and retrograde amnesia, as well as Alzheimer’s disease. Provide a detailed response.

Anterograde and Retrograde amnesia, are the two main types of amnesia. Although they are opposite of each other, they are as equally devastating the individuals affected by them. The first of the two I’ll be talking about is anterograde amnesia, anterograde meaning after, is the form of amnesia where you can't form new memories or in proper terms you are unable to use or have lost use of your hippocampus the organ in your brain that is responsible for converting short-term memory to long-term memory. There are many causes for this type of amnesia, generally it is caused by some sort of injury to the brain like, head trauma, illnesses, alcohol intoxication, or even can be due to surgery complications. However, people with anterograde are able to maintain their memories from before the trauma causing the …show more content…

Describe the case of Henry Molaison, also known as H.M. What did H.M.’s case tell psychologists about the role of hippocampus in memory? Identify the role of two of these structures in memory: the cerebellum, the amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex.

At the age of ten Henry Molaison started suffering from epilepsy after an accident on his bicycle when he was seven. He’s condition got worst with age and he was unresponsive to his Antseizure medications. Debilitated by his conditions he was despite for a solution at in 1953, at 27 he agreed to an experimental surgery. That would remove parts of his brain, his temporal lobes which include his hippocampus. Amazingly enough the surgery did work his epilepsy was repressed! However, the surgery cause him to suffer from anterograde amnesia as a result of the remover of his hippocampus. He also suffered from a mild case of retrograde amnesia as a result of the surgery. Despite all the complications H.M. manage to perform normally on a multitude of different tests and could still recall distant

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