Retrograde and Anterograde Amnesia
"Darling, what did you say was Sue's number?"
"I don't remember stripping at Dan's birthday party last year!"
"No officer, I don't know what happened after the accident. I can't even remember my name."
Amnesia is the partial or complete loss of memory, most commonly is temporary and for only a short period of time. (1). There are various degrees of amnesia with the most commonly occurrence being either retrograde or anterograde amnesia. Prior to my research into this subject I did not know much about amnesia besides what is portrayed in the Disney movie Anesthesia in which Anesthesia cannot remember her traumatic childhood. While I recognize that there is a huge difference between forgetting what to pick up at the grocery store and not remembering the past ten years of ones life, what exactly is the difference between the later and the former?
While there are several classified types of amnesia I choose to focus on retrograde and anterograde amnesia, because these are most common. Retrograde amnesia refers to the inability to remember events before the brain damage occurs, and anterograde is the inability to remember events after the brain damage. (2). Okay, so now I know the difference. One you cannot remember your past. The other you cannot remember your present. Now, the question to be posed is how exactly do these two degrees differ in relation to the way the brain operates when confronted with the trauma?
Making and storing memories is a complex process involving many regions of the brain. (3). Most experts agree that we have two stages of memories - short-term memory and long-term memory. Short-term memory is the immediate memory we have when we first hear or perceive someth...
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... to that of a goldfish.
So while I may not comprehend the complexity to which the brain controls our thought process, I can grasp the concept of retrograde and anterograde amnesia. What I do not understand is where is the memory contained prior to the amnesiac patient being able to retrieve the information? Does it just sit their collecting dust until the mailman comes back from his lunch break?
WWW Sources
1)Mental Health, definition of amnesia.
http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/mental/amnes01.htm
2)Amnesia, description of retrograde and anterograde amnesia.
http://www.macalester.edu/~psych/whathap/diaries/diariesf96/gaoshoua/diary11.html
3)Question of The Day, lists types of amnesia and explains retrograde and anterograde amnesia.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/question672.htm
4)Memory,explanation of memory.
http://www.tbiguide.com/memory.html
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...
Kaplan, Justin. "Born to Trouble: One Hundred Years of Huckleberry Finn." Mark Twain Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. Eds. Gerald Graff and James Phelan. Boston: St. Martin's, 1995. 348-359.
Amnesia, a severe long-term memory loss disease, is caused by damaged brain tissue. There are two different types of amnesia. Retrograde amnesia is also known as backward moving. This is when you have a hard time remembering the past, especially episodic memories. This occurs because of memory consolidation. Memory consolidation is the process of a new memory setting until it becomes permanently in the brain. If this process is disrupted, the memory may be lost (Hockenberry and Hockenberry page 265). Anterograde amnesia is also known as forward moving. This is when you are unable to form new
Anterograde Amnesia (AA) is commonly known as short term memory loss. It is the inability to form any new memories after a neurological or psychological trauma in the brain. “Current definitions of anterograde amnesia emphasize the presence of severe and permanent deficits for the recall of recent events (typically with poor recognition) that contrast with intact short-term memory, IQ, semantic memory, skill learning, simple classical conditioning, perceptual learning, and priming” (Aggleton, 2008, p. 1442). Also, according to Aggleton, AA causes the inability to recall autobiographical events (episodic memory). Research shows that damage to the diencephalon or frontal lobe can cause AA. Damage to the diencephalon impairs memory performance because it encodes new experiences for future recall and damage to the frontal lobe of the brain weaken memory performance because the it is involved in regulates access explicit memory (Mendev 2007). Duff, Wszalek, Tranel & Cohen (2008) stated...
Our memory is made up of many different types of memories; episodic, semantic, and implicit. Episodic memory is the remembrance of a certain event. An example of this
Throughout Canadian history, there has always been one group of people who have always been dealt the worst hand. The Native Canadians have been oppressed and forced into assimilation it the Canadian culture for hundreds of years. Through out time, Canada has changed the way they treat the natives. However, the Canadian Government has not been effective at improving the position of Native Canadians. Those who survived Canadian residential schools, lived on Native reserves or have been involved in any Native affairs issue is proof that Canada has not been improving the position of Native Canadians.
1. In chapter nine Twain portrays Jim as a father figure to Huck through showing Jim’s protective instincts. “It’s a dead man. Yes indeed, naked too. He’s ben shot in de back. I reck’n he’s been dead two, er three days. Come in Huck, but doan’look at his face – it’s too gashly.” (Twain 50.)
The Cold War was a time of great tension all over the world. From 1945 to 1989, the United States was the leader and nuclear power and was competing with the Soviet Union to create huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons. However, even though the Cold War ended, nuclear weapons are still a threat. Countries around the world strive to create nuclear power, and they do not promise to use it for peaceful purposes. Some examples of the struggles caused by nuclear weapons include the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Iran’s recent nuclear weapon program. Surely, nuclear weapons have created conflict all over the world since the Cold War era.
...cal Edition, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, An Authoritative Text Backgrounds and Sources Criticism. Ed. and Trans. Sculley Bradley, Richmond Croom Beaty, E. Hudson Long, and Thomas Cooley. New York: Norton, 1977. 328-335.
Twain, Mark, and Cynthia Johnson. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print.
Memory is the tool we use to learn and think. We all use memory in our everyday lives. Memory is the mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experiences. We all reassure ourselves that our memories are accurate and precise. Many people believe that they would be able to remember anything from the event and the different features of the situation. Yet, people don’t realize the fact that the more you think about a situation the more likely the story will change. Our memories are not a camcorder or a camera. Our memory tends to be very selective and reconstructive.
Jim is an extraordinary father figure towards Huck because he believes Huck is his responsibility and must do whatever it takes to keep him safe. When the two first meet, Jim’s main goal was to get to Cairo and be free from slavery, but after the two spent countless hours together floating down the river, Jim begins to develop a sense of endearment toward Huck and that he must treat him as one of his own. By using words like “honey” (Twain 113), one can see that Jim has grown affectionate towards Huck and would do anything to protect his well-being. The two gentlemen grow such a strong relationship that Jim forgets about his freedom just to ensure that Huck achieves his goal of finding a new home and escaping Pap. Jim also acts as a father towards Huck by providing Huck with a sense of security and protecting him from many difficulties. For example, in the beginning of the novel, Jim and Huck went exploring on the island where they found each other and on that island they found a cabin and inside they discovered a dead man and Jim told Huck, “He’s ben shot in de back. I reck’n he’s been dead two er three days. Come in, Huck, but doan’ look at his face-it’s too gashly” (Twain 50). The fact that Jim was willing to look at the gashed face of the dead man showed his bravery and willingness to do whatever it takes to protect Huck. Jim protects Huck throughout the twos adventures and in
Should all countries in the world be able to develop their own nuclear weapons? More importantly, if so, can these countries be trusted? Richard Rhodes, the author of the essay entitled “Living with the bomb,” believes that they can. With cooperation and negotiations Rhodes believes nations can secure the deadly materials from which weapons of mass destruction are made of (Rhodes). He also believes that this will help reduce arsenals which will help eliminate possible future risks (640). The author somehow believes that regardless of the tensions in the Middle East and its surrounding countries, they are worthy of our trust in a matter as great and serious as their development of nuclear weapons. Throughout his essay, Rhodes cites several cases throughout history where there have been direct threats due to the fact that certain countries simply cannot be trusted. Nuclear weapons are an extremely big deal in our world today, especially when it comes to terrorism. The idea of relying only on cooperation to secure the materials required to build nuclear weapons is outrageous, and the only program that would eliminate all threats would be by disarming all countries of their nuclear programs.
Ashcroft B., Griffiths G., Tiffin H. - Post-colonial studies, The Key Concepts, Routledge, 2009 Print.