Last year, I listened to this brief audio news concerning the famous patient H.M. from which we learned so much about memory and the specific areas associated with it. Unfortunatly, H.M. died last December 2nd. Henry G. Molaison (aka H.M.) started having generalized and minor seizures at the age of 16. After many failed attempts to control them with medication, Dr. Scoville decided (in 1953) to surgically remove both medial temporal lobes (including the amygdala, hippocampus, rhinal and parahippocampal cortex) that were considered to be the onset point of his seizures. However, that procedure changed his life forever since it resulted in sever anterograde amnesia (memory deficit involving not being able to consolidate new memories). He also had some retrograde amnesia (inability to remember about 2 years prior the surgery). Brenda Milner, who is still involved at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, was his neuropsychologist since 1956. It is due to this tragic memory loss that Milner among others learned about the memory circuit and the areas of involved in the brain.
In this interview below, I was particulary touched by his lack of emotions... Tragically, due to his lack of emotional reaction (mostly due to the removal of both amygdalas), he lived with his confusion without being upset by it...
__________________________
For a summary of H.M.'s life and the article on his death, see:
HM. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved January 27, 2009, from Answers.com Web site: http://www.answers.com/topic/hm-patient
Also, read one of the original writings by Brenda Milner and collegues:
Milner, B., Corkin, & Teuber (1968). Further analysis of the hippocampal amnesic syndrome:
14-year follow-up study of H.M., Neuropsychologia, 6, 215-234.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete