Journal
NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA
Volume 44, Issue 12, Pages 2241-2248Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2006.05.020
Keywords
hippocampus; anterograde amnesia; medial temporal lobes; episodic (autobiographical) memory; semantic memory
Ask authors/readers for more resources
AD, a 45-year-old man, presented with a severe and global anterograde amnesia following surgery for removal of a colloid cyst. Structural neuroimaging confirmed bilateral lesions to the fornix and a small lesion in the basal forebrain. Testing for remote episodic memory of autobiographical events, and for remote semantic memory of personal and public events, and of famous people, revealed that AD had a severe retrograde amnesia for autobiographical episodes that covered his entire lifetime, and a time-limited retrograde amnesia for semantic memory. Because the fornix and basal forebrain lesions disrupted major afferent and efferent pathways of the hippocampus, it was concluded that the integrity of the hippocampus and its projections are needed to retain and/or recover autobiographical memories no matter how old they are. By contrast, hippocampal contribution to semantic memory is time-limited. These findings were interpreted as consistent with Multiple Trace Theory, which holds that the hippocampal system is essential for recovering contextually rich memories no matter how old they are, but is not needed for recovering semantic memories. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available