Session Overview
 |
What conditions can impair your memory? How is your memory affected by these impairments? In this lecture, we will study amnesia, how it can influence our memory systems and how amnesia patients have helped us pinpoint areas in the brain crucial to memory. A particular highlight of this session is Prof. Gabrieli’s stories of working as a graduate student directly the famous amnesiac patient H. M. Keywords: memory systems, amnesia, anterograde amnesia, retrograde amnesia, hippocampus, Huntington's disease, patient H.M., declarative memory, procedural memory Cartoon of someone who has just been 'amnesiacked.' (Image by MIT OpenCourseWare). |
Session Activities
Readings
Read the following before watching the lecture video.
- [Sacks] Chapter 2 "The Lost Mariner" (pp. 23-42)
- Finish the chapter you started for the previous session:
Lecture Videos
View Full Video
- Lecture 11: Memory II: Amnesia and Memory Systems (00:57:56)
Lecture 11: Memory II: Amnesia and Memory Systems
> Download from iTunes U (MP4 - 125MB)
> Download from Internet Archive (MP4 - 125MB)
View by Chapter
- The Importance of Memory (00:07:37)
- Anterograde Amnesia: Patient H.M. and the Role of the Hippocampus in Memory Formation (00:13:43)
Anterograde Amnesia: Patient H.M. and the Role of the Hippocampus in Memory Formation
> Download from iTunes U (MP4 - 125MB)
> Download from Internet Archive (MP4 - 125MB)
- 22534055typesofmemoryandq&aaboutpatienth.m.60951107
- Retrograde Amnesia (00:09:27)
- Neural Memory Systems and the Effect of Huntington's and Alzheimer's Diseases on Memory (00:14:35)
Neural Memory Systems and the Effect of Huntington's and Alzheimer's Diseases on Memory
> Download from iTunes U (MP4 - 125MB)
> Download from Internet Archive (MP4 - 125MB)
Video Resources
Discussion: Memory
So, if the essential task of a memory system is to carry information forward in time, what properties should that system have? Think about the memory devices you use in everyday life: A USB stick, a post-it note, your mind, etc. What do they need to be able to do?… Read more »
Check Yourself
Name, describe and give examples of the two types of explicit memory and the three types of implicit memory.
› View/hide answer
Further Study
These optional resources are provided for students that wish to explore this topic more fully.
| TYPE | CONTENT | CONTEXT |
|---|---|---|
| Supplemental reading | Sacks, Oliver. "The Abyss: Music and Amnesia." The New Yorker, 2007. | An article by Oliver Sacks about an individual with retrograde amnesia and his wife. |
| Blog post | Neurophilosophy blogger. "Amnesia in the movies." Scienceblogs.com, 2009. | Prof. Gabrieli talks about how inaccurate most portrayals of amnesia in popular media are; this article gives some examples of movies that get it right. |