# memory Re: (urth) Heracles lesson *The Urth list — 3 messages, 3 voices, 23 Jun 2003* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### sheila miguez *23 Jun 2003, 16:04* On Mon, 23 Jun 2003 08:33:52 -0700, "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" said: > In short: The injury to Latro's head seems to have created an inability > to > recall informaiton from long-term stores at some cognitive levels -- some > fairly abstract cognitive levels; this is clearly an injury in the > "higher" > centers of the brain. It's been a while since I've taken the classes, but in some of my psyc classes we discussed the case study of a patient who had epilepsy so severe that they resorted to surgery on his hippocampus. I managed to pull up some info from google: http://thalamus.wustl.edu/course/limbic.html The significance of the hippocampus is driven home by a famous patient named H.M. As part of an epilepsy surgery, doctors removed most of his medial temporal lobes. Since that surgery, in 1953, he has formed no new memories. He can remember his childhood and everything before the surgery, and he still has working memory and the ability to form procedural memories. You can have a normal, lucid conversation with him, but if you leave the room for a moment, when you return he will not remember you or the conversation. He has completely lost the ability to lay down declarative memory. We discussed other patients in the class and studies done on them and how their learning had changed. I vaguely remember that they would do exercises where they wouldn't retain the memory of the exercise, but on latter trials their learning curves were improved. A condition that mimics this is Korsakoff's Syndrome which arises from extreme alcoholism. It produces lesions in that region of the brain. One of Oliver Sacks' books has a case study on it. If you want to read about memory, but the flip side, Luria has a case study about a man with eidetic memory _The Mind of a Mnemonist_. Luria has some interesting case studies. mimosa --- ### Dan'l Danehy-Oakes *23 Jun 2003, 16:13 · follows sheila miguez* Mimosa, Thanks; I've been meaning to read Luria for years. And I hadn't thought about the possibility of a hippocampus injury. Duh. But that would make the question about dreams all the more interesting, wouldn't it? > From: "sheila miguez" > Reply-To: urth at urth.net > To: urth at urth.net > Subject: memory Re: (urth) Heracles lesson > Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 11:04:24 -0500 > > On Mon, 23 Jun 2003 08:33:52 -0700, "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" > said: >> In short: The injury to Latro's head seems to have created an inability >> to >> recall informaiton from long-term stores at some cognitive levels -- >> some >> fairly abstract cognitive levels; this is clearly an injury in the >> "higher" >> centers of the brain. > It's been a while since I've taken the classes, but in some of my psyc > classes > we discussed the case study of a patient who had epilepsy so severe that > they > resorted to surgery on his hippocampus. I managed to pull up some info > from google: > > http://thalamus.wustl.edu/course/limbic.html > > > The significance of the hippocampus is driven home by a famous patient > named H.M. As part of an epilepsy surgery, doctors removed most of his > medial temporal lobes. Since that surgery, in 1953, he has formed no new > memories. He can remember his childhood and everything before the > surgery, and he still has working memory and the ability to form > procedural memories. You can have a normal, lucid conversation with him, > but if you leave the room for a moment, when you return he will not > remember you or the conversation. He has completely lost the ability to > lay down declarative memory. > > > We discussed other patients in the class and studies done on them and how > their > learning had changed. I vaguely remember that they would do exercises > where they > wouldn't retain the memory of the exercise, but on latter trials their > learning > curves were improved. > > A condition that mimics this is Korsakoff's Syndrome which arises from > extreme > alcoholism. It produces lesions in that region of the brain. One of > Oliver Sacks' > books has a case study on it. > > If you want to read about memory, but the flip side, Luria has a case > study about > a man with eidetic memory _The Mind of a Mnemonist_. Luria has some > interesting > case studies. > > mimosa > > -- --- ### gordon meuse *25 Jun 2003, 13:30 · follows Dan'l Danehy-Oakes* > If you want to read about memory, but the flip side, Luria has a case study > about a man with eidetic >memory _The Mind of a Mnemonist_. Luria has some > interesting case studies. _The Mind of a Mnemonist_ is quite good, but probably more apropos to these discussions is _The Man With the Shattered World_ also by Luria. It is based on the journals of a Russian officer who suffered severe trauma to the head. He realized that he had lost his ability to create new memories so he starts to keep a journal. The book has commentary and analysis by Luria as well. Incidentally, I think Korsakov's syndrome can be caused by any organic damage to the brain, including, but not limited to alcoholism. Gordon Meuse ---