[4] Case studies also show that amnesia is typically associated with damage to the medial temporal lobe.
In addition, priming (both perceptual and conceptual) can assist amnesiacs in the learning of fresh non-declarative knowledge.
[1] Individuals with amnesia also retain substantial intellectual, linguistic, and social skills despite profound impairments in the ability to recall specific information encountered in prior learning episodes.
However, in some situations, people with dense anterograde amnesia do not remember the episodes during which they previously learned or observed the information.
[14] The loss of semantic information in amnesia is most closely related with damage to the medial temporal lobe[15] or to the neocortex.
[16] Some patients with anterograde amnesia can still acquire some semantic information, even though it might be more difficult and might remain rather unrelated to more general knowledge.
There is evidence that the hippocampus and the medial temporal lobe may help to consolidate semantic memories, but then they are more correlated with the neocortex.
following surgery showed his hippocampus to be intact except for a specific lesion restricted to the CA1 pyramidal cells.
There is evidence that damage to the medial temporal lobe correlates to a loss of autobiographical episodic memory.
For example, some patients show improvement on the pseudorandom sequences experiment just as healthy people; therefore, procedural learning can proceed independently of the brain system required for declarative memory.
This type of dissociation between declarative and procedural memory can also be found in patients with diencephalic amnesia such as Korsakoff's syndrome.
The majority of amnesia and related memory issues derive from the first two categories as these are more common and the third could be considered a subcategory of the first.
[51] This may also include strategies for organizing information to remember it more easily and for improving understanding of lengthy conversation.
[52] Another coping mechanism is taking advantage of technological assistance, such as a personal digital device to keep track of day-to-day tasks.
[51] Notebooks, wall calendars, pill reminders and photographs of people and places are low-tech memory aids that can help as well.
Such conditions include but are not limited to low thyroid function, liver or kidney disease, stroke, depression, bipolar disorder and blood clots in the brain.
Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome involves a lack of thiamin and replacing this vitamin by consuming thiamin-rich foods such as whole-grain cereals, legumes (beans and lentils), nuts, lean pork, and yeast can help treat it.
To what extent the patient recovers and how long the amnesia will continue depends on the type and severity of the lesion.
[57] Case studies have played a large role in the discovery of amnesia and the parts of the brain that were affected.
The studies also gave scientists the resources into improving their knowledge about amnesia and insight into a cure or prevention.
Physicians were unable to control his seizures with drugs, so the neurosurgeon Scoville tried a new approach involving brain surgery.
His epilepsy did improve, but Molaison lost the ability to form new long-term memories (anterograde amnesia).
Researchers also found that, when asked, Molaison could answer questions about national or international events, but he could not remember his own personal memories.
It was not until after his death that researchers had the chance to examine his brain, when they found his lesions were restricted to the CA1 portion of the hippocampus.
This case study led to important research involving the role of the hippocampus and the function of memory.
In books and movies, though, versions of amnesia lurk everywhere, from episodes of Mission Impossible to metafictional and absurdist masterpieces, with dozens of stops in between.
[66]Lethem traces the roots of literary amnesia to Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett, among others, fueled in large part by the seeping into popular culture of the work of Sigmund Freud, which also strongly influenced genre films such as film noir.
Amnesia is so often used as a plot device in films, that a widely recognized stereotypical dialogue has even developed around it, with the victim melodramatically asking "Where am I?
"[66] In movies and television, particularly sitcoms and soap operas, it is often depicted that a second blow to the head, similar to the first one which caused the amnesia, will then cure it.