Memory abnormality

Memory abnormality, any of the disorders that affect the ability to remember.

Disorders of memory must have been known to the ancients and are mentioned in several early medical texts, but it was not until the closing decades of the 19th century that serious attempts were made to analyze them or to seek their explanation in terms of brain disturbances. Of the early attempts, the most influential was that of a French psychologist, Théodule-Armand Ribot, who, in his Diseases of Memory (1881, English translation 1882), endeavoured to account for memory loss as a symptom of progressive brain disease by embracing principles describing the evolution of memory function in the individual, as offered by an English neurologist, John Hughlings Jackson. Ribot wrote:

The progressive destruction of memory follows a logical order—a law. It advances progressively from the unstable to the stable. It begins with the most recent recollections, which, being lightly impressed upon the nervous elements, rarely repeated and consequently having no permanent associations, represent organization in its feeblest form. It ends with the sensorial, instinctive memory, which, having become a permanent and integral part of the organism, represents organization in its most highly developed stage.

The statement, amounting to Ribot’s “law” of regression (or progressive destruction) of memory, enjoyed a considerable vogue and is not without contemporary influence. The notion has been applied with some success to phenomena as diverse as the breakdown of memory for language in a disorder called aphasia and the gradual return of memory after brain concussion. It also helped to strengthen the belief that the neural basis of memory undergoes progressive strengthening or consolidation as a function of time. Yet students of retrograde amnesia (loss of memory for relatively old events) agree that Ribot’s principle admits of many exceptions. In recovery from concussion of the brain, for example, the most recent memories are not always the first to return. It has proved difficult, moreover, to disentangle the effects of passage of time from those of rehearsal or repetition on memory.

A Russian psychiatrist, Sergey Sergeyevich Korsakov (Korsakoff), may have been the first to recognize that amnesia need not necessarily be associated with dementia (or loss of the ability to reason), as Ribot and many others had supposed. Korsakov described severe but relatively specific amnesia for recent and current events among alcoholics who showed no obvious evidence of shortcomings in intelligence and judgment. This disturbance, now called the Korsakoff syndrome, has been reported for a variety of brain disorders aside from alcoholism and appears to result from damage in a relatively localized part of the brain.

The neurological approach may be combined with evidence of psychopathology to enrich understanding of memory function. Thus, a French neurologist, Pierre Janet, described amnesia sufferers who were apparently very similar to those observed by Korsakov but who gave no evidence of underlying brain disease. Janet also studied people who had lost memory of extensive periods in the past, also without evidence of organic disorder. He was led to regard these amnesias as hysterical, explaining them in terms of dissociation: a selective loss of access to specific memory data that seem to hold some degree of emotional significance. In his experience, reconnection of dissociated memories could as a rule be brought about by suggestion while the sufferer was under hypnosis. Freud regarded hysterical amnesia as arising from a protective activity or defense mechanism against unpleasant recollections; he came to call this sort of forgetting repression, and he later invoked it to account for the typical inability of adults to recollect their earliest years (infantile amnesia). He held that all forms of psychogenic (not demonstrably organic) amnesia eventually could resolve after prolonged sessions of talking (psychotherapy) and that hypnosis was neither essential nor necessarily in the amnesiac’s best interest. Nevertheless, hypnosis (sometimes induced with the aid of drugs) has been widely used in the treatment of hysterical amnesia, particularly in time of war when only limited time is available.

Organic disorders

Defect of memory is one of the most frequently observed symptoms of impaired brain function. It may be transitory, as after an alcoholic bout or an epileptic seizure; or it may be enduring, as after severe head injury or in association with brain disease. When there is impaired ability to store memories of new experiences (up to total loss of memory for recent events) the defect is termed anterograde amnesia. Retrograde loss may progressively abate or shrink if recovery begins, or it may gradually enlarge in scope, as in cases of progressive brain disease. Minor grades of memory defect are not uncommon aftereffects of severe head injury or infections such as encephalitis; typically they are shown in forgetfulness about recent events, in slow and insecure learning of new skills, and sometimes in a degree of persistent amnesia for events preceding the illness.

Transient global amnesia

Apparently first described in 1964, transient global amnesia consists of an abrupt loss of memory lasting from a few seconds to a few hours, without loss of consciousness or other evidence of impairment. The individual is virtually unable to store new experience, suffering permanent absence of memory for the period of the attack. There is also a retrograde loss that may initially extend up to years preceding the attack. This deficit shrinks rapidly in the course of recovery but leaves an enduring gap in memory that seldom exceeds the three-quarters of an hour before onset. Thus the person is left with a persisting memory gap only for what happened during the attack itself and in a short period immediately preceding. Such attacks may be recurrent, are thought to result from transient reduction in blood supply in specific brain regions, and sometimes presage a stroke.

Traumatic amnesia

On recovery of consciousness after trauma, a person who has been knocked out by a blow on the head at first typically is dazed, confused, and imperfectly aware of his whereabouts and circumstances. This so-called posttraumatic confusional state may last for an hour or so up to several days or even weeks. While in this condition, the individual appears unable to store new memories; on recovery he commonly reports total amnesia for the period of altered consciousness (posttraumatic amnesia). He also is apt to show retrograde amnesia that may extend over brief or quite long periods into the past, the duration seeming to depend on such factors as severity of injury and the sufferer’s age. In the gradual course of recovery, memories are often reported to return in strict chronological sequence from the most remote to the most recent, as in Ribot’s law. Yet this is by no means always the case; memories seem often to return haphazardly and to become gradually interrelated in the appropriate time sequence. The amnesia that remains seldom involves more than the events that occurred shortly before the accident though in severe cases careful inquiry may reveal some residual memory defect for experiences dating from as long as a year before the trauma. It is thought by some that, after recovery, the overall period of time for which there is no recollection may indicate the degree of severity of the head injury.

Traumatic automatism

Posttraumatic amnesia is sometimes observed after mild head injury without loss of consciousness and with no apparent change in ordinary behaviour. A football player who is dazed but not knocked out by a blow on the head, for example, may continue to play and even score a goal. But he may be going through these motions automatically and may later have no memory whatever of the part of the game that followed his injury. The phenomenon is known as traumatic automatism and seems similar to, if not identical with, transient global amnesia.

Memory defect after electroconvulsive therapy

Electroconvulsive treatments have been widely used in psychiatry, particularly for depressed people. A seizure or convulsion is induced by passing current through electrodes placed on the forehead. Each treatment is followed by a period of confusion for which the person is subsequently amnesic; at this time there is also a rapidly abating amnesia of some seconds for events that immediately preceded the shock. After a number of treatments, however, some individuals complain of more persistent memory defect, shown mainly in exaggerated forgetfulness for day-to-day events. These difficulties nearly always clear up within a few weeks after treatment ends. Experimental evidence tentatively suggests that electroshock administered to only one side of the head produces therapeutic results equal to those of the standard procedure but with significantly reduced impairment of memory.

Korsakoff’s syndrome

First described in cases of chronic alcoholism, Korsakoff’s psychosis, or syndrome, occurs in a wide variety of toxic and infectious brain illnesses, as well as in association with such nutritional disorders as deficiency of the B vitamins. The syndrome also has been observed among people with cerebral tumours, especially those involving the third ventricle (one of the fluid-filled cavities in the brain). The main psychological feature is gross defect in recent memory, sometimes so severe as to produce “moment-to-moment” consciousness; such people can store new information only for a few seconds and report no continuity between one experience and the next. They seem incapable of learning, even after many trials or repetitions. Although cases of such severity are relatively rare, the ability to store experience only briefly is quite characteristic of Korsakoff’s syndrome.

In addition, sufferers almost always show evidence of retrograde amnesia that can span as little as a few weeks past to as much as 15 or 20 years before onset of the disorder. These extensive retrograde amnesias are seldom total or uniform, and “islands” of memory often can be found by persistent interrogation. The person’s memory function depends heavily on circumstances; for example, a man with Korsakoff’s syndrome who recognizes his wife instantly when she visits may in her absence vehemently deny that he is married. Commonly, there is disorientation in place and time; the individual often underestimates his own age, sometimes grossly. Some sufferers characteristically confabulate; i.e., they remember experiences they never personally had or they falsely localize their memories in time. Sufferers sometimes deny their illness or memory problems. Otherwise, they can exhibit good intelligence and, apart perhaps from some lack of spontaneity, may show little or no personality change.

While Korsakoff’s syndrome is commonly encountered as a transitory sign of brain disorder, it can be chronic, remaining effectively unimproved over many years. Even with improvement, however, an appreciable weakness in recent memory, particularly in regard to sequence in time, is quite apparent.

Persistent defect after encephalitis

Attention repeatedly has been drawn to severe and persistent memory defect following attacks of a form of brain inflammation called acute inclusion body encephalitis. The individual’s behaviour closely resembles that of Korsakoff’s syndrome except that his insight into the memory disorder is usually good and confabulation is infrequent or absent. Indeed, the memory disorder is sometimes so limited and specific as to raise the possibility of a psychogenic (i.e., hysterical) amnesia. In cases of this kind there may be little or no impairment of intelligence or judgment.

Defect following brain surgery

Surgical operations on the sides of the brain (the temporal lobes) to remove tissues that produce symptoms of epilepsy are routine. While good results are often achieved, a degree of memory defect ensues. Operations on the dominant (usually left) temporal lobe tend to hamper one’s ability to learn verbal information by hearing or reading. Usually observable even before surgery, the defect tends to be more marked after operation and has been reported to persist for up to three years before eventual recovery. Operations on one temporal lobe when there is unsuspected damage to its fellow on the other side of the brain (or on both lobes, in surgery very rarely undertaken) produce severe and persistent general memory defect, altogether comparable to postencephalitic amnesia. There is gross defect in recent memory and in learning (except perhaps in motor learning), with retrograde amnesia that initially may involve several years of the person’s past. Intelligence otherwise appears to be well preserved; the individual shows insight into his memory difficulty, and seldom, if ever, confabulates.

Diffuse brain diseases

Some memory failure is almost universal during old age, particularly in forgetfulness for names and in the reduced ability to learn. Many people of advanced age, nevertheless, show adequate memory function if they suffer no brain disease. Impairment of memory is a characteristic early sign of senility, as well as of hardening of the brain arteries (cerebral arteriosclerosis) at any age, with exaggerated forgetfulness for recent events and progressive failure in memory for experiences that preceded the disorder. As arteriosclerotic brain disease progresses, amnesia tends to extend further into the past, embracing personal experience and general or common information. When the symptoms are almost those of Korsakoff’s syndrome, the disturbance is called presbyophrenia. In most cases the amnesia is complicated by failure in judgment and changes in character. It has been suggested that severe memory defect in an elderly person carries a poor prognosis, being related to such factors as a shortened survival time and an increased death rate.

A Swiss psychiatrist, Eugen Bleuler, held that amnesia results only from a diffuse disorder of the outer layers (cortex) of the brain and suggested that memory depends on the integrity of the cortex as a whole. Indeed, the removal of brain tissue from rats and monkeys in experimental studies has indicated that retention of complex habits by the animals depends on the total amount of cortex that remains. It was claimed that the degree to which memory is lost depends not on where the brain is injured but on the extent of the damage. (This is the “law” of mass action, which asserts that the brain functions in a unitary manner; i.e., as a whole.) While the extent of diffuse brain damage is roughly related to the severity of memory defect, the principle of mass action is manifestly inadequate. Whatever its physical basis, memory seems to depend on the integrity of relatively limited parts of the brain, rather than on that organ (or even the cortex) as a whole.

Severe and highly specific amnesic symptoms principally stem from damage to such brain structures as the mammillary bodies, circumscribed parts of the thalamus, and of the temporal lobe (e.g., the hippocampus). While the ability to store new experience (and perhaps to retrieve well-established memories) appears to depend on a distinct neural system involving the temporal cortex and limited parts of the thalamus and hypothalamus, understanding of the neuroanatomy of memory remains sketchy enough to generate major differences of opinion. French and German workers tend to stress the role of the mammillary bodies, while U.S. investigators tend to implicate the thalamus. It has been pointed out that circumscribed damage to the mammillary bodies is not invariably associated with memory defect; cases of amnesia evidently occur in which these structures are spared. Nevertheless, implication of the mammillary bodies in a large number of verified cases of Korsakoff’s syndrome seems incontrovertible. Injury to other neural tissues (e.g., the so-called fornix bundle deep within the brain) that anatomically might be expected to produce severe memory disorder rarely does so. While evidence for amnesia as a sign of localized brain damage is impressive, much remains to be understood about the physical system that sustains memory.

Psychological studies of amnesia

Short-term memory

The so-called short-term memory is typically intact among amnesia sufferers. Such victims usually can repeat a short phrase or a series of words or numbers from immediate memory as adequately as anyone of comparable age and intelligence. Such an amnesic person can retain the gist of a question or request long enough to respond appropriately, unless, of course, there is enough delay in performance or attention is diverted. Evidently the ability to register information is intact, if this means availability of data in short-term memory. Thus, experimental psychologists who favour a sharp distinction between short-term and long-term storage systems contend that the primary deficit in amnesia is an inability to transfer information from short-term to long-term storage.

Associative learning

It has been argued that the basic deficit in the amnesic state is a loss of learning ability. In a series of experiments with amnesic patients, using, for the most part, verbal material, the subjects evidenced failure to link new with old associations, rapid fading of new associations, and great difficulty in reproducing whatever associations might have been formed. These findings have been amply confirmed. In one view, however, the weakness resides less in the failure to establish new associations than in their rapid decay (i.e., accelerated forgetting). On the other hand, it has often been noticed that if a Korsakoff patient can once succeed in learning an item, he may be able to reproduce it correctly after an appreciable interval of time. Further experiments, using a variety of techniques for assessing learning and retention, have suggested that retrieval rather than learning is at fault.

Motor skill

It has been noted that the fact that the acquisition of manual skill in Korsakoff patients is less impaired than either verbal learning or the solution of puzzles or mazes. This is confirmed in the observation that a severely amnesic patient who had undergone an extensive operation on the temporal lobes could perform rotary-pursuit and tracking tasks at a level not greatly inferior to that of healthy subjects. A second case of the same kind has been described, in which memory for motor tasks such as maze learning or the rendering of new compositions on the piano is said to have been completely preserved. These observations suggest that the acquisition of motor skill may remain relatively unaffected by lesions that give rise to a severe defect of general memory. What is commonly called global or generalized memory defect may, therefore, become increasingly subject to fractionation.

Residual learning capacity

Korsakov himself pointed out that a patient who consistently denies having seen his doctor before does not necessarily react to him on each successive encounter as a total stranger. It thus appears that, despite gross amnesia, some learning, perhaps implicit, can still take place. This view has gained much support from clinical and experimental studies. About 1900 it was reported that even severely affected Korsakoff patients show appreciable savings in relearning verbal material after an interval of several hours or days, thus indicating minimal retention. Some Korsakoff patients, in spite of gross amnesia, eventually learn their way about the hospital. Again, some patients who disown any knowledge of their whereabouts may nevertheless give the correct name of the hospital, when asked to guess or to select it from a list containing the names of several hospitals. Thus, while learning capacity is seldom, if ever, wholly destroyed, there is failure to integrate new knowledge within the total personality. It is apparently a lack of mental cohesion that lies at the basis of Korsakoff’s psychosis.


While some clinicians have attributed memory defect largely to defective registration of experience (i.e., failure to form memory traces), the widely accepted view is that it results primarily from a greatly increased rapidity of forgetting (i.e., rapid decay of memory traces). This view has also been held by the great majority of experimental psychologists who have worked with amnesic people. The consensus is that amnesia sufferers characteristically lose much of the memory they once had. This conclusion finds support in the very rapid extinction of conditioned eyeblink responses to a buzzer. It is notable that, in Korsakoff states, forgetting appears to be due to the passage of time (oblivescence) rather than to retroactive inhibition or some kindred interference effect.

Time disorders

Estimation of time is typically poor in amnesic states. The individual is prone to underestimate grossly the time in which he has been engaged on any particular activity. Conversely, he may equally grossly overestimate the time that has elapsed since a particular event (e.g., the visit of a relative) of which he has preserved some recollection. Indeed, amnesic patients exhibit a remarkable want of coherence in their thought processes, suggesting that a lack of temporal synthesis underlies, and may indeed in large part explain, the defect of memory. Yet although difficulties in dating particular past events and in building a coherent time framework are characteristic of amnesic states and may persist after otherwise good recovery, an explanation couched wholly in terms of time disturbance is scarcely convincing.

Retrograde amnesia

Since retrograde amnesia relates to memory for events that took place when brain function was unimpaired, it clearly cannot be ascribed to failure of registration—with the exception, perhaps, of the very brief permanent amnesias following electroconvulsive shock or head injury. Retrograde amnesia otherwise would appear to be wholly due to a failure of retrieval, though this failure is evidently selective. That recent memories are generally harder to evoke than those more remote is usually explained on the basis of consolidation; i.e., progressive strengthening of memory traces with the passage of time. Yet, recency is not the only factor, and in some cases memory for a relatively recent event may still be preserved while that for one more remote is inaccessible. Much depends, too, on the method used to test retrieval; e.g., recognition may succeed when voluntary recall entirely fails. By and large, the availability of information in memory would seem to depend to a considerable extent on its relation to the person’s current interests and preoccupations. When these are severely curtailed by an amnesic state, the links connecting present and past are severed, with a consequent failure of reproduction.

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