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Does Focal Retrograde Amnesia Exist And if So, What Causes it?
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Mayes, Andrew Richard |
| Copyright Year | 2002 |
| Abstract | The claim that brain damage alone can cause focal retrograde amnesia (FRA) is still controversial for three main reasons. First, demonstrating the defining pattern of memory disorder for FRA strictly requires comparing like with like. No-one would accept that a patient has been shown to be suffering from FRA if they are given very different tests of preand post-morbid memory, but it remains unclear how closely comparable these tests of memory need to be. It is also unclear just how normal the post-morbid acquisition and retention of memories needs to be for a case to be counted as FRA. For clarification it needs to be shown whether or not patients who meet the tighter criteria are suffering from qualitatively distinct processing deficits from patients who only meet laxer criteria. Second, even if it is accepted that a patient is showing FRA, it is very hard to determine whether FRA is caused mainly or solely by neural dysfunction rather than partially or totally through the operation of psychological factors. These factors form an ill-understood continuum between frankly aware simulation (malingering) and non-remembering of which the patient is unaware (psychogenic amnesia). Both malingering and psychogenic amnesia are believed to be motivated by a secondary gain that may be very hard to identify. Patients with FRA who do not show detectable neurological dysfunction or clear evidence that their condition is caused by psychological factors have been referred to as functional amnesics. But it remains unclear whether there is a gap to be filled which requires this concept. The controversy about whether FRA is caused by neural dysfunction, some form of motivated forgetting, or by some other kind of functional disturbance in an intact brain illustrates the difficulty there is in identifying which of these possible causes is operating. It also illustrates that the related concepts are not as clear as people perhaps think. Third, the difficulty of constructing theories of how brain dysfunction can cause FRA may have led to an unwillingness to accept evidence that there are cases of FRA that look as if they have been caused by neurological damage. Specifically, it is hard to see how brain dysfunction can impair retrieval of certain kinds of memory that were acquired prior to brain injury, but leave the ability to acquire, retain and retrieve similar new memories relatively intact. Case FP, reported by Sellal et al. (2002, this issue), had an interesting pattern of memory impairment that seems to correspond to transient FRA. Memories acquired in the approximately ten-year period prior to his minor head injury were impaired in FP although earlier memories seemed relatively unaffected. His deficit included memories for episodic incidents and facts, public events and information about famous faces, and new words. The evidence about his post-morbid memory |
| Starting Page | 670 |
| Ending Page | 673 |
| Page Count | 4 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| DOI | 10.1016/S0010-9452(08)70034-0 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/pii/S0010945208700340 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945208700340?dgcid=api_sd_search-api-endpoint |
| PubMed reference number | 12465680 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-9452%2808%2970034-0 |
| Journal | Medline |
| Volume Number | 38 |
| Journal | Cortex |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
