Memento (2001): Anterograde Amnesia

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The psychological phenomenon explored in the film Memento (2001) is Anterograde amnesia. This is the loss of ability to create new memories after the event responsible for the memory deficit that caused his amnesia ("Anterograde Amnesia | Simply Psychology", 2017). The Inability to recall the recent past while long-term memories from before the event remain intact. Brain areas implicated are the temporal cortex including the subcortical regions and the hippocampus. With Anterograde amnesia, there is often limited recovery and patients are left with a debilitating or permanent condition ("Anterograde Amnesia | Simply Psychology", 2017).

The film tells the story of Leonard Shelby a former insurance investigator and his attempts to find his wives …show more content…

Lenny states “I know who I am. I just can't form new memories” (Memento, 2001). Amnesia is not about identity but memory. However, Memento does present some notable errors. There are potential misconceptions such as Shelby acquired his condition through an accidental brain injury. This does happen but is more common for people to develop this through strokes, chronic epilepsy and viral encephalitis. Another plot point in Memento that lacks truth is his vivid memory of the physical attack causing his injury. People with anterograde amnesia often cannot remember events just before the attack and the trauma itself.

There are many examples of published research that considers this phenomenon. Lenny’s predicament is like the case of patient HM explored in Corkin (2002). This man suffered from intractable epileptic seizures in the Media temporal lobe. To reduce his epilepsy surgeons removed part of the brain, losing two thirds of his hippocampus which is critical for the formation on new memories. Like Lenny patient HM wakes everyday with no memory of the previous day but sustained his older memories before his operation (Corkin,

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