Elsevier

Neuropsychologia

Volume 36, Issue 1, January 1998, Pages 99-107
Neuropsychologia

Recovery of function processes in human amnesia: evidence from transient global amnesia

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0028-3932(97)00096-1Get rights and content

Abstract

There are few clues as to the processes that underlie recovery of function from human amnesia. Evidence is offered from the perspective of a study of recovery of function during an episode of transient global amnesia (TGA) that occurred as a complication of a cerebral angiographic procedure being carried out in a neurosciences centre, and where there was therefore a unique opportunity to examine acute changes in memory function. This allowed us to conduct the first quantitative study where shrinkage of anterograde and retrograde memory loss was plotted at four separate intervals throughout the acute recovery process, and also 24hr later. Recovery of retrograde amnesia preceded recovery from anterograde amnesia. Resolution of a naming deficit more closely paralleled recovery from retrograde amnesia rather than anterograde amnesia. Within retrograde amnesia for public events, there was a temporal gradient of memory loss, with more recent events affected to a greater degree than earlier events. Within anterograde amnesia, picture recognition memory preceded recovery of story recall memory. On the basis of these findings, and related observations in the published literature, it is proposed that recovery from some types of human amnesia, such as that associated with TGA, follows a ‘lateral-to-medial’ rule—lateral inferotemporal areas that play a major role in retrograde amnesia recover first from hypometabolism related to the TGA attack, followed by ‘interface’ areas such as the rhinal and parahippocampal cortices that are considered to have a role in both anterograde and retrograde memory functioning, with the last areas to recover physiological integrity being discrete limbic-diencephalic structures such as the hippocampus.

References (57)

  • J.C. Baron et al.

    Right frontal cortex hypometabolism in transient global amnesia

    Brain

    (1994)
  • D.F. Benson et al.

    Shrinking retrograde amnesia

    Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry

    (1967)
  • S. Corkin et al.

    H.M.'s medial temporal-lobe lesion: findings from MRI

    The Journal of Neuroscience

    (1997)
  • J. Evans et al.

    Neuropsychological and SPECT scan findings during and after transient global amnesia: evidence for the differential impairment of remote episodic memory

    Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry

    (1993)
  • G.R. Fink et al.

    Cerebral representations of one's own past: neural networks involved in autobiographical memory

    The Journal of Neuroscience

    (1996)
  • G. Goldenberg et al.

    Thalamic amnesia in transient global amnesia: a SPECT study

    Neurology

    (1991)
  • K. Graham et al.

    Differentiating the roles of the hippocampal complex and the neocortex in long-term memory storage: evidence from the study of semantic dementia and Alzheimer's disease

    Neuropsychology

    (1997)
  • C. Harting et al.

    Different degrees of impairment in anterograde/retrograde memory and recall/recognition performance in a transient global amnesic case

    Neurocase

    (1996)
  • J.R. Hodges

    Transient Amnesia

    (1991)
  • J.R. Hodges

    Semantic memory and frontal executive function during transient global amnesia

    Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry

    (1994)
  • J.R. Hodges et al.

    Persistent memory impairment following transient global amnesia

    Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology

    (1990)
  • J.R. Hodges et al.

    Observations during transient global amnesia

    Brain

    (1989)
  • J.R. Hodges et al.

    Semantic dementia: progressive fluent aphasia with temporal lobe atrophy

    Brain

    (1990)
  • A. Jackson et al.

    Transient global amnesia and cortical blindness after vertebral angiography: further evidence for the role of arterial spasm

    American Journal of Neuroradiology

    (1995)
  • J. Juni et al.

    Transient global amnesia after cerebral angiography with iohexol

    Neuroradiology

    (1992)
  • N. Kapur

    Transient epileptic amnesia: an update and a reformulation

    Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry

    (1993)
  • Kapur, N., Autobiographical amnesia and temporal lobe pathology. In Case Studies in the Neuropsychology of Memory, ed....
  • N. Kapur et al.

    The mammillary bodies revisited: their role in human memory functioning

  • Cited by (27)

    • Syndromes of Transient Amnesia

      2015, The Neurology of Consciousness: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropathology
    • Syndromes of transient amnesia

      2009, The Neurology of Consciousness
    • Chapter 8 Retrograde memory loss

      2008, Handbook of Clinical Neurology
      Citation Excerpt :

      Following a closed head injury, RA characteristically shrinks to a much briefer period, the length of which is related to the severity of the injury (Russell and Nathan, 1946; Williams and Zangwill, 1952; Wasterlain, 1971). Similarly, following episodes of transient global amnesia (TGA), there is sometimes a residual brief RA lasting a matter of minutes or (exceptionally) hours (Fisher, 1982; Hodges, 1991; Kapur et al., 1998). There may be a delayed onset to certain types of brief RA, as Lynch and Yarnell (1973) demonstrated in American footballers who had incurred a mild head injury.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text