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new england journal
review article
current concepts
Memory Dysfunction
Andrew E. Budson, M.D., and Bruce H. Price, M.D.
From the Geriatric Research Education
Clinical Center, Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital, Bedford, Mass.,
the Department of Neurology, Boston University, Boston, and the Department of
Neurology, Division of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston (A.E.B.); and Harvard Medical School, Boston, and McLean
Hospital, Belmont, Mass. (B.H.P.). Address
reprint requests to Dr. Budson at GRECC,
Bldg. 62, Rm. B30, Edith Nourse Rogers
Memorial Veterans Hospital, 200 Springs
Rd., Bedford, MA 01730, or at [email protected]
N Engl J Med 2005;352:692-9.
Copyright © 2005 Massachusetts Medical Society.
emory function is vulnerable to a variety of pathologic
processes including neurodegenerative diseases, strokes, tumors, head trauma, hypoxia, cardiac surgery, malnutrition, attention-deficit disorder, depression, anxiety, the side effects of medication, and normal aging.1,2 As such, memory
impairment is commonly seen by physicians in multiple disciplines including neurology, psychiatry, medicine, and surgery. Memory loss is often the most disabling feature
of many disorders, impairing the normal daily activities of the patients and profoundly
affecting their families.
Some perceptions about memory, such as the concepts of “short-term” and “longterm,” have given way to a more refined understanding and improved classification
systems. These changes result from neuropsychological studies of patients with focal
brain lesions, neuroanatomical studies in humans and animals, experiments in animals,
positron-emission tomography, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and eventrelated potentials.
Memory is now understood to be a collection of mental abilities that depend on several systems within the brain. In this article, we will discuss the following four memory
systems that are of clinical relevance: episodic memory, semantic memory, procedural
memory, and working memory (Table 1). We will summarize the current understanding of memory from the point of view of functional neuroimaging and studies of patients with brain insults, which should aid clinicians in the diagnosis and treatment of
the memory disorders of their patients. As therapeutic interventions for memory disorders become available, clinicians will increasingly need to be aware of the various memory systems in the brain.
A memory system is a way for the brain to process information that will be available
for use at a later time.3 Different memory systems depend on different neuroanatomical
structures (Fig. 1 and 2). Some systems are associated with conscious awareness (explicit) and can be consciously recalled (declarative),4 whereas others are expressed by a
change in behavior (implicit) and are typically unconscious (nondeclarative). Memory
can also be categorized in many other ways, such as by the nature of the material to be
remembered (e.g., verbal5,6 or visuospatial5,7).
episodic memory
Episodic memory refers to the explicit and declarative memory system used to recall personal experiences framed in our own context, such as a short story or what you had for
dinner last night. Episodic memory has largely been defined according to the inability
of people with amnesia due to lesions of the medial temporal lobe to remember experiences that healthy people can remember. Thus, this memory system depends on the
medial temporal lobes (including the hippocampus and the entorhinal and perirhinal
cortexes). Other critical structures in the episodic memory system (some of which are
n engl j med 352;7
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current concepts
Table 1. Selected Memory Systems.
Memory System
Major Anatomical
Structures Involved
Length of Storage
of Memory
Type of Awareness
Episodic memory
Medial temporal lobes, anteri- Minutes to years
or thalamic nucleus, mammillary body, fornix, prefrontal cortex
Explicit, declarative
Remembering a short story, what
you had for dinner last night,
and what you did on your last
Semantic memory
Inferolateral temporal lobes
Minutes to years
Explicit, declarative
Knowing who was the first president
of the United States, the color of
a lion, and how a fork differs
from a comb
Procedural memory
Basal ganglia, cerebellum,
Minutes to years
supplementary motor area
Explicit or implicit,
Driving a car with a standard transmission (explicit) and learning
the sequence of numbers on a
touch-tone phone without trying
Working memory
Phonologic: prefrontal cortex, Seconds to minutes; Explicit, declarative
Broca’s area, Wernicke’s
information activearea
ly rehearsed or maSpatial: prefrontal cortex,
visual-association areas
Phonologic: keeping a phone number “in your head” before dialing
Spatial: mentally following a route or
rotating an object in your mind
associated with a circuit described by Papez in
19378) include the basal forebrain with the medial
septum and diagonal band of Broca’s area, the retrosplenial cortex, the presubiculum, the fornix,
mammillary bodies, the mammillothalamic tract,
and the anterior nucleus of the thalamus.2 A lesion
in any one of these structures may cause the impairment that is characteristic of dysfunction of the
episodic memory system (Fig. 1).
Memory loss attributable to dysfunction of the
episodic memory system follows a predictable pattern known as Ribot’s law, which states that events
just before an ictus are most vulnerable to dissolution, whereas remote memories are most resistant.
Thus, in cases of dysfunction of the episodic memory system, the ability to learn new information is
impaired (anterograde amnesia), recently learned
information cannot be retrieved (retrograde amnesia), and remotely learned information is usually
Studies have shown that the episodic memory
system includes the frontal lobes.5,10 Rather than
being responsible for the retention of information,
the frontal lobes are involved in the registration, acquisition, or encoding of information6; the retrieval
of information without contextual and other cues11;
the recollection of the source of information12; and
the assessment of the temporal sequence and recency of events.13 Studies have also shown that the
left medial temporal and left frontal lobes are most
active when a person is learning words,6 whereas
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the right medial temporal and right frontal lobes are
most active when learning visual scenes.7
One reason that the frontal lobes are important
for encoding is that they permit the person to focus
frontal lobes may cause distortions of episodic
memory as well as false memories, such as information that is associated with the wrong context14
or with incorrect specific details.15 Extreme examples of memory distortions include confabulation,
which occurs when “memories” are created to be
consistent with current information,14 such as “remembering” that someone broke into the house
and rearranged household items.
These differences between deficits in episodic
that occur because of damage to the frontal lobes
can be conceptualized in an oversimplified but clinically useful analogy.16 The frontal lobes are analogous to the “file clerk” of the episodic memory system, the medial temporal lobes to the “recent
memory file cabinet,” and other cortical regions to
the “remote memory file cabinet.” Thus, if the
frontal lobes are impaired, it is difficult — but not
impossible — to get information in and out of storage. However, the information may be distorted owing to “improper filing” that leads to an inaccurate
source, context, or sequence. If, however, the medial temporal lobes are rendered completely dysfunc-
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Cingulate gyrus
Anterior thalamic
Mammillothalamic tract
Mammillary body
Figure 1. Episodic Memory.
The medial temporal lobes, including the hippocampus and parahippocampus, form the core of the episodic memory
system. Other brain regions are also necessary for episodic memory to function correctly.
tional, it will be impossible for recent information
to be retained. Older information that has been consolidated over a period of months or years is thought
to be stored in other cortical regions and will therefore be available even when medial temporal lobes
and the Papez circuit are damaged. For example,
although patients with depression and those with
Alzheimer’s disease may exhibit episodic memory
dysfunction, the former have a dysfunctional “file
clerk” and the latter have a dysfunctional “recent
memory file cabinet.”
Disorders of episodic memory may be transient,
such as those attributable to a concussion, a seizure,
or transient global amnesia. Static disorders, such
as traumatic brain injury, hypoxic or ischemic injury,
single strokes, surgical lesions, and encephalitis,
typically are maximal at onset (or for several days),
improve (sometimes over periods of two years or
more), and then are stable. Degenerative diseases,
including Alzheimer’s disease,17 dementia with
Lewy bodies, and frontotemporal dementia, begin
insidiously and progress gradually. Disorders affecting multiple brain regions, such as vascular de-
n engl j med 352;7
mentia and multiple sclerosis, progress in a stepwise manner. Other disorders of memory, such as
those due to medications, hypoglycemia, tumors,
and Korsakoff ’s syndrome, can have a more complicated and variable time course.
Once a disorder of episodic memory is suspected on the basis of a reported inability to remember
recent information and experiences accurately, additional evaluation is warranted. A detailed history
should be taken, with particular emphasis on the
time course of the memory disorder. Interviewing a
caregiver or other informant is usually critical for
accuracy, since the patient will invariably not remember important aspects of the history. A history
of other cognitive deficits (e.g., attention, language,
visuospatial, and executive) should be elicited. A
medical and neurologic examination should be performed, with a focus on searching for signs of systemic illness, focal neurologic injury, and neurodegenerative disorders.
Cursory cognitive testing may be performed by
asking the patient to remember a short story or several words, or with the use of instruments such as
february 17 , 2005
current concepts
the Mini–Mental State Examination,18 the Blessed
Dementia Scale,19 the Three Words–Three Shapes
memory test,2 the word-list memory test of the
motor area
Consortium to Establish a Registry for AlzheiBasal ganglia
mer’s Disease,20 the Drilled Word Span Test,2 and
the Seven-Minute Screen.21 In complex cases, a
formal neuropsychological evaluation should be
To aid in distinguishing disorders of episodic
memory that are attributable to dysfunction of the
temporal lobe
frontal lobes from those attributable to dysfunction
of the medial temporal lobes, difficulties in the enCerebellum
coding and retrieval of information should be conSemantic memory
trasted with primary failure of storage. When inforProcedural memory
mation cannot be remembered even after encoding
Working memory
has been maximized by multiple rehearsals, and after retrieval demands have been minimized with the
use of a multiple-choice recognition test, a primary
Figure 2. Semantic, Procedural, and Working Memories.
failure of storage is present. (See the SupplementaThe inferolateral temporal lobes are important in the naming and categorizary Appendix, available with the full text of this artition tasks by which semantic memory is typically assessed. However, in the
broadest sense, semantic memory may reside in multiple and diverse cortical
cle at, for suggestions on how to use
areas that are related to various types of knowledge. The basal ganglia, cerethese tests in clinical practice.)
bellum, and supplementary motor area are critical for procedural memory.
Laboratory and imaging studies will usually be
The prefrontal cortex is active in virtually all working memory tasks. Other corindicated, according to the differential diagnosis.
tical and subcortical brain regions will also be active, depending on the type
Treatment depends on the specific disorder. Choand complexity of the working memory task.
linesterase inhibitors22 and memantine23 have been
approved by the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) to treat Alzheimer’s disease; the former have
also been used to treat vascular dementia24 and de- nearby visual-association areas.30 However, a more
mentia with Lewy bodies.25 Two recent reviews dis- restrictive view of semantic memory, one that is
cuss the effectiveness of these treatments.26,27
justified in light of the naming and categorization
tasks by which it is usually measured, localizes semantic memory to the inferolateral temporal lobes
semantic memory
(Fig. 2).31,32
Semantic memory refers to our general store of conAlzheimer’s disease is the most common cliniceptual and factual knowledge, such as the color of cal disorder disrupting semantic memory. This
a lion or the first president of the United States, that disruption may be attributable to pathology in the
is not related to any specific memory. Like episodic inferolateral temporal lobes33 or to pathology in
memory, semantic memory is a declarative and ex- frontal cortexes,34 leading to poor activation and replicit memory system. Evidence that this memory trieval of semantic information.35 In Alzheimer’s
system is different from episodic memory emerges disease, episodic and semantic memory decline infrom neuroimaging studies28 and the fact that pre- dependently of each other, supporting the idea that
viously acquired semantic memory is spared in pa- two separate memory systems are impaired in this
tients who have severe impairment of the episodic disorder.36
memory system, such as with disruption of the PaOther causes of the impairment of semantic
pez circuit (e.g., in Korsakoff ’s syndrome) or sur- memory include almost any disorder that may disgical removal of the medial temporal lobes.29
rupt the inferolateral temporal lobes, such as trauSince in its broadest sense semantic memory in- matic brain injury, stroke, surgical lesions, encephcludes all our knowledge of the world not related to alitis, and tumors (Table 2). Patients with the
specific episodic memories, one could argue that temporal variant of frontotemporal dementia,
it resides in multiple cortical areas. There is evi- known as semantic dementia, also exhibit deficits
dence, for example, that visual images are stored in in all functions of semantic memory, including
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Table 2. Four Memory Systems and Common Clinical
Disorders That Disrupt Them.*
Episodic memory
Alzheimer’s disease
Mild cognitive impairment, amnestic type
Dementia with Lewy bodies
Encephalitis (most commonly, herpes simplex
Frontal variant of frontotemporal dementia
Korsakoff’s syndrome
Transient global amnesia
Traumatic brain injury
Hypoxic–ischemic injury
Cardiopulmonary bypass
Side effects of medication
Deficiency of vitamin B12
Temporal-lobe surgery
Vascular dementia
Multiple sclerosis
Semantic memory
Alzheimer’s disease
Semantic dementia (temporal variant of frontotemporal
Traumatic brain injury
Encephalitis (most commonly, herpes simplex
Procedural memory
Parkinsons’s disease
Huntington’s disease
Progressive supranuclear palsy
Olivopontocerebellar degeneration
Obsessive–compulsive disorder
* Tumors, strokes, hemorrhages, and other focal disease
processes may affect these memory systems, depending
on the neuroanatomical structures disrupted.
n engl j med 352;7
naming and single-word comprehension and impoverished general knowledge. They show relative
episodic memory.37
Disorders of semantic memory should be suspected when patients have difficulty naming items
whose names they previously knew. The evaluation
for disorders of semantic memory should include
the same components as the evaluation used for disorders of episodic memory. The history and cognitive examination should ascertain whether the problem is solely attributable to a difficulty in recalling
people’s names and other proper nouns, which is
common, particularly in healthy older adults, or to
a true loss of semantic information. Patients with
mild dysfunction of semantic memory may show
only reduced generation of words for semantic categories (e.g., the number of names of animals that
can be generated in one minute), whereas patients
with a more severe impairment of semantic memory
typically show a two-way naming deficit (i.e., they
are unable to name an item when it is described and
are also unable to describe an item when they are
given its name). These more severely affected patients also show impoverished general knowledge.
Treatment depends on the specific disorder.
procedural memory
Working memory
Normal aging
Vascular dementia
Frontal variant of frontotemporal dementia
Alzheimer’s disease
Dementia with Lewy bodies
Multiple sclerosis
Traumatic brain injury
Side effects of medication
Attention deficit–hyperactivity disorder
Obsessive–compulsive disorder
Parkinson’s disease
Huntington’s disease
Progressive supranuclear palsy
Cardiopulmonary bypass
Deficiency of vitamin B12
Procedural memory refers to the ability to learn behavioral and cognitive skills and algorithms that are
used at an automatic, unconscious level. Procedural memory is nondeclarative but during acquisition
may be either explicit (such as learning to drive a car
with a standard transmission) or implicit (such as
learning the sequence of numbers on a touch-tone
phone without conscious effort). That procedural
memory can be spared in patients who have severe
deficits of the episodic-memory system, such as patients with Korsakoff ’s syndrome or Alzheimer’s
disease or who have undergone surgical removal of
the medial temporal lobes,29,38 demonstrates that
procedural memory depends on a memory system
that is separate and distinct from the episodic memory and semantic memory systems.
Research with the use of functional imaging has
shown that brain regions involved in procedural
memory, including the supplementary motor area,
basal ganglia, and cerebellum, become active as a
new task is being learned (Fig. 2).39 Corroborating
evidence comes from studies of patients with le-
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current concepts
sions in the basal ganglia or cerebellum who show
impairment in learning procedural skills.40 Because
the disease process in early Alzheimer’s disease affects cortical and limbic structures while sparing
the basal ganglia and cerebellum, these patients
show deficits in episodic memory but normal acquisition and maintenance of procedural skills.
Parkinson’s disease is the most common disorder affecting procedural memory. Other neurodegenerative diseases that disrupt procedural memory
include Huntington’s disease and olivopontocerebellar degeneration. Patients in the early stages of
these disorders perform nearly normally on episodic memory tests but show an impaired ability to
learn skills.38,41 Tumors, strokes, hemorrhages,
and other causes of damage to the basal ganglia or
cerebellum may also disrupt procedural memory.
Patients with major depression have also been
shown to have impairment in procedural memory,
perhaps because depression may involve dysfunction of the basal ganglia (Table 2).42
Disruption of procedural memory should be suspected when patients show evidence of either the
loss of previously learned skills or substantial impairment in learning new skills. For example, patients may lose the ability to perform automatic,
skilled movements, such as writing, playing a musical instrument, or swinging a golf club. Although
they may be able to relearn the fundamentals of
these skills, explicit thinking is often required for
their performance. As a result, patients with damage
to the procedural memory system may never achieve
the automatic effortlessness of simple motor tasks
that healthy people take for granted.
Evaluation of disorders of procedural memory
is similar to that of disorders of episodic memory;
treatment of the underlying cause depends on the
specific disease process. It is worth noting that patients whose episodic memory has been devastated
by encephalitis, for example, have had success in rehabilitation by using the procedural memory system to learn new skills.43
working memory
Working memory is a combination of the traditional fields of attention, concentration, and short-term
memory. It refers to the ability to temporarily maintain and manipulate information that one needs to
keep in mind. Because it requires active and conscious participation, working memory is an explicit
and declarative memory system. Working memory
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has traditionally been divided into components that
process phonologic information (e.g., keeping a
phone number “in your head”) or spatial information (e.g., mentally following a route) and an executive system that allocates attentional resources.44
Numerous studies have shown that working
memory uses a network of cortical and subcortical
areas, depending on the particular task.45 However,
virtually all tasks involving working memory require
participation of the prefrontal cortex (Fig. 2).5 Typically, the network of cortical and subcortical areas
includes posterior brain regions (e.g., visual-association areas) that are linked with prefrontal regions
to form a circuit. Studies have shown that phonologic working memory tends to involve more regions on the left side of the brain, whereas spatial
working memory tends to involve more regions on
the right side.5 Studies have also shown that more
difficult tasks involving working memory require
bilateral brain activation, regardless of the nature
of the material being manipulated.46 Furthermore,
there is an increase in the number of activated brain
regions in the prefrontal cortex as the complexity of
the task increases.47
Because working memory depends on a network
of activity that includes subcortical structures as
well as frontal and parietal cortical regions, many
neurodegenerative diseases impair working-memory tasks. Studies have shown that patients with
Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or Huntington’s disease
or dementia with Lewy bodies, as well as less common disorders such as progressive supranuclear
palsy, may show impaired working memory (Table
2).48,49 In addition to neurodegenerative diseases,
almost any disease process that disrupts the frontal
lobes or their connections to posterior cortical regions and subcortical structures can interfere with
working memory. Such processes include strokes,
tumors, head injury, and multiple sclerosis, among
others.50,51 Because phonologic working memory
involves the silent rehearsal of verbal information,
almost any kind of aphasia can also impair it. Although the pathophysiology is not well understood,
disorders that diminish attentional resources, such
as attention deficit–hyperactivity disorder, obsessive–compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, and depression, can also impair working memory.52-54
A disorder of working memory can present in
several ways. Most commonly, the patient will show
an inability to concentrate or pay attention. Difficulty performing a new task involving multistep instructions may be seen. A disorder of working mem-
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new england journal
ory may also present as a problem with episodic
memory. In such cases, the evaluation will show a
primary failure of encoding, because in order to
transfer information into episodic memory, the information must first be “kept in mind” by working
Evaluation of working memory is similar to that
of disorders of episodic memory. Treatment depends on the specific cause; for instance, stimulants
have been approved by the FDA to treat attention
deficit–hyperactivity disorder.55,56
Traditionally, memory has been viewed as a simple
concept. In fact, the use of various methods has pro-
duced converging and complementary lines of evidence, suggesting that memory is composed of separate and distinct systems. A single disease process
(such as Alzheimer’s disease) may impair more than
one memory system. Improved understanding of
the types of memory will aid clinicians in the diagnosis and treatment of their patients’ memory disorders. This knowledge will become increasingly
important as more specific strategies emerge for
the treatment of memory dysfunction.
Dr. Budson reports having received consultation or lecture fees
from Eisai, Forest Pharmaceuticals, Janssen, and Pfizer.
We are indebted to Daniel Schacter, David Wolk, Daniel Press, Jeffrey Joseph, Dorene Rentz, Paul Solomon, and Hyemi Chong for
their helpful comments on the manuscript, figures, and supplementary appendix.
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