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Memory is essential for basic human functions like driving, conversations, reading, and cooking. Cases of memory loss attract attention because people underestimate how important memory is. There are different types of memory impairment like amnesia where people lose the ability to form new memories or recall past events. Famous patients like HM helped researchers understand how damage to parts of the brain like the hippocampus can disrupt different memory functions, as HM could no longer learn new information after his surgery. The case of another patient, EP, showed that severe brain damage can completely prevent new learning and also cause modest impairment in general knowledge. In summary, memory allows people to encode, store, and retrieve information over time, and any mistakes or brain damage could disrupt this
Memory is essential for basic human functions like driving, conversations, reading, and cooking. Cases of memory loss attract attention because people underestimate how important memory is. There are different types of memory impairment like amnesia where people lose the ability to form new memories or recall past events. Famous patients like HM helped researchers understand how damage to parts of the brain like the hippocampus can disrupt different memory functions, as HM could no longer learn new information after his surgery. The case of another patient, EP, showed that severe brain damage can completely prevent new learning and also cause modest impairment in general knowledge. In summary, memory allows people to encode, store, and retrieve information over time, and any mistakes or brain damage could disrupt this
Memory is essential for basic human functions like driving, conversations, reading, and cooking. Cases of memory loss attract attention because people underestimate how important memory is. There are different types of memory impairment like amnesia where people lose the ability to form new memories or recall past events. Famous patients like HM helped researchers understand how damage to parts of the brain like the hippocampus can disrupt different memory functions, as HM could no longer learn new information after his surgery. The case of another patient, EP, showed that severe brain damage can completely prevent new learning and also cause modest impairment in general knowledge. In summary, memory allows people to encode, store, and retrieve information over time, and any mistakes or brain damage could disrupt this
Without memory, we would not be able, for example, to
drive to work, hold a meaningful conversation with our relatives, read a book, or prepare a meal. People who do not have any problems with remembering tend to underestimate the essentiality of memory processes. That is why cases of memory lost attract public and researchers attention. Understanding memory failings can help researchers work out how we form and retain memories. For example, the "amnesic syndrome" (also known as classical amnesia) is one of the purest forms of memory impairment. People with retrograde amnesia lose their ability to recall events before the brain injury. If they have anterograde amnesia, they cannot form new memories after the injury. However, the amnesic syndrome does not affect all forms of memory. For example, patient HM is widely regarded as the most famous amnesiac patient in history. His case played a very important role in the development of theories that explain the link between brain function and memory. Because the patient was suffering from epilepsy, his hippocampal formation was removed. As a result, some of his memory functions were impaired. He could not learn new words, songs or faces after his surgery, forgot who he was talking to as soon as he turned away, didn't know how old he was or if his parents were alive or dead, and never again clearly remembered an event, such as his birthday party, or who the current president of the United States was. In contrast, he did retain the ability to learn some new motor skills. Also, his apparent ability to complete tasks that requires recall from short- term and procedural memory but not long-term episodic memory suggests that recall processes from these memory systems may be mediated. In addition, the case of another famous amnesiac patient known as EP provides some surprising findings concerning how our memory system functions, and how this system breaks down. He did not only lose the ability to form new memories, EP suffered a modest impairment in his semantic knowledge - the knowledge of things like words and the names of objects. Due to the total destruction of specific memory-linked brain structures, EP was utterly unable to learn anything new. To summarize, each person possesses a unique and effective memory device that encode information in a storable form, retain that information faithfully and enable it to be accessed at later point. A mistake in any of these components or any brain damage could lead to failure of a coherent mechanism and change the existing functioning of individual.