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Written By: Editorial Team | Published : June 25, 2014 7:16 PM IST
Are people with episodic amnesia really 'stuck in time' as is widely assumed? No, asserts a new research. It has generally been assumed that people with episodic amnesia experience time much differently than those with more typical memory function. However, recent research disputes such claims. 'It is our whole way of thinking about these people that we wanted to bring under pressure,' said study co-author Carl Craver, professor of philosophy at Washington University in the US.
'There are sets of claims that sound empirical, like 'these people are stuck in time'. But if you ask, have you actually tested what they know about time? The answer is no,' he said. The case in study was that of Toronto native Kent Cochrane who was left with severe brain damage and dramatically impaired episodic memory after a motorcycle accident in 1981. Cochrane, known as KC, could no longer remember events from his past. Nor could he predict specific events that might happen in the future. (Read: Why you don't have many memories before you were 7 years old)
A series of experiments convinced Craver and his co-authors that although KC could not remember specific past experiences, he did in fact have an understanding of time and an appreciation of its significance to his life. For example, KC understood that events in the past have already happened, that they influence the future, and that once they happen, they cannot be changed. Even more interestingly, KC's understanding of time influenced his decision-making. If KC truly had no understanding of time, Craver argued, then he and others with his type of amnesia would act as if only the present mattered. The article appeared in the journal Neuropsychologia.
What causes amnesia?
The truth is that amnesia due to injury is extremely rare. In the real world, amnesia is caused due to various reasons but car accidents or head injuries rarely leads to amnesia. The worst that can happen during trauma incidents is confusion in the early phase of recovery and striking someone again will certainly not bring their memory back! It usually occurs due to damage in brain structures which control your emotions and memories. These structures include the thalamus and the hippocampus which are situated within the temporal lobes of the brain. The most common causes of damage to this structure are stroke, encephalitis (a disease where there is inflammation of the brain), long term alcohol or drug abuse, tumours, degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer's and Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). A more rare kind of amnesia is called psychogenic or dissociative amnesia which is caused due to emotional shock or trauma.
What are the treatment options for people suffering from amnesia?
Hitting someone on the head again to retrieve memory is not a treatment option and we're still wondering where filmmakers got that idea from. Amnesia per se has no treatment and patients regain their memory over the course of time. Some coping techniques include cognitive or occupational therapy or exposing patients to incidents or objects from their past to jog their memory (perhaps that's what Jab Tak Hai Jaan was based on!).
All said and done the kind of memory loss that we see on the big screen is actually a medical impossibility and the creation of the not-so-fertile minds of our filmmakers. (Read: Ghanchakkar: Is it possible to suffer from amnesia like Emraan Hashmi?)
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