memory Re: (urth) Heracles lesson

sheila miguez23 Jun 2003, 16:04original as archived

↰ answers Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · by quotation

On Mon, 23 Jun 2003 08:33:52 -0700, "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <katbarx at hotmail.com> said:

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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 <cite> 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. </cite> 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-Oakes23 Jun 2003, 16:13original as archived

↳ follows sheila miguez · by subject

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?

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From: "sheila miguez" <albizia at feafaroth.org> 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" <katbarx at hotmail.com> 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 <cite> 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. </cite> 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 meuse25 Jun 2003, 13:30original as archived

↳ follows Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · by subject

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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