How brain damage affects memory processing

Refers to the learning outcome: Explain how biological factors may affect one cognitive process

What is amnesia?• Memory loss (inability to learn new

information or retrieve information)• Two types• I.Retrograde

Memory loss of events BEFORE brain damage

• II. AnterogradeMemory loss of events AFTER brain damage

Info: http://www.tbiguide.com/memory.html

Famous case: Clive Wearing• Suffers both anterograde and

retrograde• MRI scan shows damage to

the hippocampus and some of the frontal regions

• Episodic memory and some semantic memory are lost cannot put new information in long term memory

• Implicit memory and emotional memory still intact

• Memory span: few seconds

How Clive Wearing percieves it• Not able to remember anything for

more than a blink• Kept a journal• ”I am awake”

”This time finally awake””I was fully conscious at 10.35p.m”

• ”Forever today” Deborah 2005

How it happened?

• In March 1985• In his forties • Brain Infection (Herpes

encephalitis)• Injured hippocampus• Hippocampus - center for long

term memory• Perception was unimpaired but he

could almost not remember anything

• The most devastating case of amnesia ever recorded

CLIP ON CLIVE WEARING!

•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmzU47i2xgw

•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwigmktix2Y

Case study: HManterograde amnesia• First studied by Milner &

Scoville 1957• Head injury when he was 9• Epileptic seizures• No drug treatment surgey • 27 years old• Removed tissue from the

temporal lobe, including hippocampus, the amygdala

• H.M.'s Brain and the History of Memory by Brian Newhouse:

• http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=7584970&m=7584971

HM after the surgery

• Cured his seizures, gave him amnesia (anterogade)

• Able to: Carry on a conversation• Not able to: Recognize people and

also rereads magazines.• Can remember if rehearsed

• Answer ”ethics in research” on p. 79 and ”understanding research”

Summary• You can use Clive and H.M as support (how biological factors

may affect one cognitive process: brain damage on memory)• H.M and Clive W can also be used as support for the multi-

store model of memory (since they show that our memory consists of different memory systems)

• Both can be used as support in LO about ethical considerations

• Since you need two biological factors: you can use the study by Martinez and Kesner (1991) Ach in memory formation

• You can also (great isn’t it?) use H.M and Clive for the LO in the cognitive level of analysis: ”Examine one interaction between cognition and physiology in terms of behaviour”