Retrograde amnesia

Retrograde amnesia (RA) is a loss of memory-access to events that occurred, or information that was learned, before an injury or the onset of a disease. It tends to negatively affect episodic, autobiographical, and declarative memory while usually keeping procedural memory intact with no difficulty for learning new knowledge. RA can be temporally graded or more permanently based on the severity of its cause and is usually consistent with Ribot's law: where subjects are more likely to lose memories closer to the traumatic incident than more remote memories. The type of information that is forgotten can be very specific, like a single event, or more general, resembling generic amnesia. It is not to be confused with anterograde amnesia, which deals with the inability to form new memories following the onset of an injury or disease. Retrograde amnesia (RA) is a loss of memory-access to events that occurred, or information that was learned, before an injury or the onset of a disease. It tends to negatively affect episodic, autobiographical, and declarative memory while usually keeping procedural memory intact with no difficulty for learning new knowledge. RA can be temporally graded or more permanently based on the severity of its cause and is usually consistent with Ribot's law: where subjects are more likely to lose memories closer to the traumatic incident than more remote memories. The type of information that is forgotten can be very specific, like a single event, or more general, resembling generic amnesia. It is not to be confused with anterograde amnesia, which deals with the inability to form new memories following the onset of an injury or disease. As previously mentioned, RA commonly results from damage to the brain regions most closely associated with episodic and declarative memory, including autobiographical information. In extreme cases, individuals may completely forget who they are. Generally, this is a more severe type of amnesia known as global or generalized amnesia. However, memory loss can also be selective or categorical, manifested by a person's inability to remember events related to a specific incident or topic. Patients also differ in durations of RA (how long they can't recall information) and durations of what is forgotten (past time frame for which information is unavailable). In temporally graded retrograde amnesia, victims eventually recover most memories following the onset of RA. This suggests that the hippocampal formation is only used in systematic consolidation for temporary, and short periods of time, until long-term consolidation takes place in other brain structures. Here, the fact that damage to the hippocampal formation can eventually overcome RA suggests that other brain structures are able to take over the jobs of the malfunctioning regions. RA can also progress and further deteriorate memory recollection, as in the case of Korsakoff syndrome and Alzheimer's disease, due to the ongoing nature of the damage caused by the illnesses. The degree to which different patients recover from RA differs in time (some take a few days while others a few decades) and content (some will only remember certain specific instances while others more). These terms are used to describe a pure form of RA, with an absence of anterograde amnesia (AA). In addition, Focal RA in particular, has also been used to describe a RA situation in which there is a lack of observable physical deficit as well. This could be described as a psychogenic form of amnesia with mild anterograde and retrograde loss. A case study of DH revealed that the patient was unable to provide personal or public information, however there was no parahippocampal or entorhinal damage found. Individuals with focal brain damage have minimal RA. Isolated RA is associated with a visible thalamic lesion. Consistent with other forms of RA, the isolated form is marked by a profound inability to recall past information. Pure retrograde amnesia (PRA) refers to the behavioral syndrome that is characterized by the inability to retrieve remote information in the face of a normal ability to learn new information, with no other ecological or psychometric evidence of cognitive impairment. It should not be confused with the brief periods of peritraumatic amnesia that are common in mild concussive head traumas. The findings of pure retrograde amnesia have helped form the dissociation between mechanisms for RA and AA. Several studies have found numerous causes for PRA like vascular diseases, head traumas ranging from mild to severe, encephalitis, as well as purely psychological conditions and totally unidentifiable aetiologies. Most people who suffer from PRA can function normally and learn new information and therefore are not severely set back in life. A pure form of RA is rare as most cases of RA co-occur with AA. A famous example is that of patient ML. The patient's MRI revealed damage to the right ventral frontal cortex and underlying white matter, including the uncinate fasciculus, a band of fibres previously thought to mediate retrieval of specific events from one's personal past.