Anterograde Amnesia Case Study

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Anterograde amnesia is when someone cannot remember events after the Incident has occurred – ‘pure amnesiacs’ is an example of this. Meaning that a person cannot store new information in their short-term memory. H.M is a good example of this; he had surgery in 1953 when was only twenty-seven years old. This particular surgery involved the removal of his hippocampus to alleviate his epilepsy. His epilepsy was severe, and had an extremely negative impact on his daily life (Saul McLeod, 2011).
The surgery was successful in controlling his epileptic seizures, but sadly left H.M with some serious memory impairment as a side effect. (Saul McLeod,
2011). He was unable to transfer any new information into his long-term memory. His short-term memory was normal,
…show more content…
It was very hard for H.M to have a normal life, he was unable to hold a job, or make new friends, normal things most of us take for granted, he was not able to do. Dr. Brenda Milner continued to study H.M’s memory for years after his surgery, and she came to realize that despite dealing with hardship in creating new memories, his old ones were intact, and he was especially good at remembering major world issues (Brian Newhouse, 2007). H.M’s memory of events prior to his surgery demonstrate that the hippocampus is necessary to make new long-term memories, but however it is not needed to retrieve old ones, thanks to Milner people were able to discover this.
Milner’s most talked about discovery involved a test in which H.M was asked to trace a star on a piece of paper reflected in a mirror (Peter Murray,
2013). It is not the easiest of tasks, especially for someone who suffers like H.M, however with practice people would normally improve, and that is exactly what had happened. H.M would improve each time he was asked to perform the task.
This is called ‘declarative memory,’ which means, “The conscious recollection

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