PSY 250 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Temporal Lobe, Retrograde Amnesia, Rhinal Cortex

• School: Stony Brook University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 250
• Professor: Hoi- Chung Leung

Document Summary

Inability to retain information for longer than a few minutes. It is typically considered as a long-term memory impairment. Caused by damage to parts of the brain vital to memory consolidation (associated with hippocampus), storage, processing, and recall. Anterograde amnesia: cannot later remember events that occur after brain damage. Retrograde amnesia: cannot remember events prior to brain damage. Confusion period around the brain damage - people often do not remember because the incident was so traumatic they have a few minutes of confusion. Probably due to memory consolidation takes some times; may have some memory but not very clear. A case study of amnesia: h. m: surgery (1953) to treat severe epilepsy. Removed hippocampus, amygdala, and adjacent cortex (rhinal cortex) Reduced seizures, normal perceptual and motor abilities, increased in iq. Background information: h. m. , at the age of 7 he was riding a bike and hit his head and developed epilepsy. At age 27 it started really affecting him.