Anterograde amnesia
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Address the content of the post below and must include a discussion of current treatment options for the disorder Anterograde amnesia . Support your review with least 1 peer-reviewed article.
Anterograde amnesia is the inability to create new memories due to a brain injury. An individual who suffers from anterograde amnesia has the ability to remember old memories prior to the indecent but can’t create new memories after an incident has occurred. Anterograde amnesia happens when there is damage to three distinct parts of the brain: the hippocampus, one of the most studied parts of the brain and known as the “gateway” in which new information must pass before being permanently stored in memory. If the hippocampus is damaged, no new information can enter memory although old memory would be safe because it has already passed through the gateway. Damage to the hippocampus is a result from a stroke or aneurysm, as well as epilepsy, encephalitis, hypoxia, carbon monoxide poison, near-drowning or near-suffocation, and the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease; some damage to the hippocampus also occurs with age. The basal forebrain, a group of structures which are responsible for producing a chemical that is responsible for helping cells in the brain store new information during the learning process. This part of the brain, the basal forebrain, could be damaged by an aneurysm of the anterior communicating artery which supplies blood to the basal forebrain. Last, but not least, anterograde amnesia can sometimes be caused by damaged that occurred following damage to the diencephalon-a set of structures deep in the brain including the medical thalamic nuclei. There is no good understanding regarding the reasons why damage to these parts of the brain result in a selective memory loss such as anterograde amnesia.
An interesting case study that I read was about a 27 year old patient who had surgery to remove a part of the brain known as the hippocampus to help alleviate the severe symptoms of epilepsy. The surgery helped with the symptoms of epilepsy, however, he suffered severe memory impairment as a side effect. His short term memory was normal, but his ability to transfer new information into his long-term memory suffered tremendously. He showed almost no knowledge of current affairs and even forgot any new news or new information as soon as he read it. He also didn’t know about recent family events, including moving houses or the recent passing of his father. Although all this was happening to him, seemed cognitively normal since he did learn and remember perceptual and motor skills although he still needed to be reminded of things he needed to do. This case shows the highly selective nature of the problem with anterograde amnesia following brain damage (Milner, B., Corkin, S., et al.,1968). According to the findings of this study, there isn’t much deterioration of memory function but has specific deficit in learning new information is severely impaired, including language and memory span.
References
McLeod, S. A. (2011). Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org/anterograde-amnesia.html (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Milner, B., Corkin, S., et al. (1968). Further Analysis of Hippocampal Amnesic Syndrome – 14-Year Follow-up Study of HM. Neuropsychologia, 215-230.
Myers, Catherine E., 2006, “Memory Loss and the Brain”, http://www.memorylossonline.com/glossary/anterogradeamnesia.html (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Posted: 2 Years AgoDue: 11/09/2017Budget: $5