Milner studied a man named Henry Molaison, who had sustained severe memory loss as a result of brain surgery for uncontrolled epileptic seizures.

Corkin met him in 1962 and tested his memory relating to his sense of touch "Somesthetic function after focal cerebral damage" which became the subject of her PhD.

In 1977, when Teuber passed away, Corkin became director of the human neuropsychology laboratory and, in 1981, was promoted directly from the position of Principal Research Scientist to Associate Professor with tenure.

[2] An August 7, 2016, New York Times article by Luke Dittrich generated controversy when it questioned the ethics of Corkin in her dealings with Henry Molaison.

This report suggested that Corkin attempted to suppress research findings that H.M. had a preexisting frontal lobe lesion; did not locate the genetically closest living relative to H.M. from whom to obtain consent (legal proceedings instead appointed a distant relative as conservator); and sought to shred her original source material and unpublished data because it could potentially lead to a reexamination of her conclusions during her decades of research on H.M. (This final assertion derives from a recording of an interview that Dittrich carried out with Corkin.

Over 200 neuroscientists signed a letter to the New York Times stating that the article was biased and misleading[11] and as of August 21, 2016, there continues to be back-and-forth statements released by MIT and by Dittrich.