1. Memory Disorders Psychology 3717

2. Introduction • The strange case of Charles D’Sousa • Or is it Philip Cutajar? • Rare type of disorder • Some stuff clearly spared

3. Introduction • Results with amnesiacs has lead to many discoveries about memory • Episodic vs. semantic memory • Procedural vs. declarative memory • Implicit vs. explicit memory • Phonological loop vs. visuo spatial sketchpad

4. problems • Taxonomy • Individual differences • Interpretation • Application • Mostly comes down to a lack of control, which of course is inevitable

5. Case studies • We pretty much have to rely on these • They are, thankfully, rare • Usually some sort of accident or a stroke

6. Case SP • Stroke patient • Both Medial temporal lobes, left Hp and lots of surrounding area, but not the amygdala • Had trouble naming objects • Anterograde and retrograde amnesia • Similar to KC

7. Clive Wearing • Case of encephalitis • Pervasive amnesia • Both semantic and episodic impairment • Temporal lobe dilation • Hp destroyed

8. Performance Patterns • Retrograde amnesia • Losing past memories • Anterograde amnesia • No new memories • Spared function • Often implicit tasks, such as priming or ability to learn a new skill

9. Typically spared • Working Memory • Semantic memory • Even KC could learn new stuff • Declarative information using Tulving’s method • Restrict errors

10. Why? • Difficulties in interference, retrieval and encoding • Consolidation • Tends to come down to something to do with HP • Context or sending item off for processing or some such thing

11. Semantic memory problems • What is a cat? • Temporal lobe problems • Oddly enough, episodic memory often intact in these rare cases

12. Working Memory Problems • There are cases of people with intact phonological loops and visuo spatial sketchpads that are pretty much toast • And vice versa

13. Alzheimer’s • More than half of all dementia is from AD • 2 times more women than men • Could be because women live longer though • dementia and brain stuff • Neurofibrillary tangles and neuritic plaques

14. AD • MASSIVE cell death • In essence, you get like lesions everywhere • ‘cortical’ dementia, but you get these lesions, holes really, everywhere

15. Neurotransmitters affected • ACh is important in memory, especially in HP • The ACh system is severely damaged in AD • Indeed it is almost targeted • Other systems too though

16. Memory effects • Episodic effects • Eventually semantic effects • Retrieval cues don’t help • Information was not even encoded • Nondeclarative stuff, skills etc, are the last to go

17. Treatment • Most drugs target the cholinergic system • This disease not only affects the victim, but also his/her family • NGF is promising • Treatments will come, but, reversal, I dunno • Respite care is key for the family

18. Conclusions • Frankly there is not a great deal of hope for most amnesiacs • That said, neuroscience is moving pretty fast • Has helped us understand normal function