People with memory only last 90 minutes

In the classic movie "Memento", the character Leonard wakes up every morning with an empty memory, unable to form new memories due to a disease called anterograde amnesia after being beaten. in the beginning. This is purely fictional, but in real life there is a case of serious illness like in the movie.

Strange story about people with memory only lasts 90 minutes

The Neurocase magazine recently published a strange story about a British man who can only remember everything for up to 90 minutes after anesthesia 10 years ago.

Day after day, the man woke up and thought it was March 14, 2005 - the day he started the strange part.William O , 38, underwent a dental procedure that required local anesthesia, but after sitting in the dentist's treatment chair, his memory was zero. so unusual that researchers describe it as new to science.

" One of the reasons for us to write about this individual case is that we have never seen anything like that before in hospitals and we don't know where it came from, " said Dr. Gerald. Burgess, the head of research at Leicester University (UK), emphasized.

Before the amnesia , William was a healthy and energetic member of the British armed forces. He has no history of psychological and mental disorders. His family also has no history of any brain disease.

According to a study report, at 1340 on March 14, William went to the doctor to treat endodontic (root canal root canal), in which he was local anesthesia. After the procedure was complete, William could not stand up and was described as "empty" . By 17:00 on the same day, he still did not recover and was therefore hospitalized.

For the next month, he could only remember new things for about 10 minutes and all memories would disappear afterwards. However, William's character has not changed and he is fully aware of who he is as well as everything that happens until March 14.

Over time, William's short-term memory gradually became longer, but now, he can only remember events for about an hour and a half. And every day when he woke up, William believed that he was in 2005 and needed to see a dentist. This man only knows the difference because he and his wife will write notes together on his smartphone to read it every morning.

William was diagnosed with congenital amnesia , the disease often developed due to injury to the hippocampus - the brain region essential to the process of learning and remembering, seahorses. Experts say he may have had a special reaction to anesthesia, leading to nerve damage, but different types of brain scans do not detect any obvious abnormalities.

While still completely confused about William's case, the researchers also made a few statements that did not refer directly to anesthesia or dental procedures. They say this may be an unusual form of psychological forgetfulness, when patients experience memory loss following a life-traumatic incident. However, according to the report, British male patients did not experience any such incidents and he was completely psychologically stable.

Another possible explanation is that William may have some deficiency in vitamin synthesis, a process necessary for restoring neuronal or synaptic connections for circulation. believe. Without the ability to change or enhance these structures following an event, memories cannot be strengthened and therefore disappear. The most convincing thing is, this process lasts about 90 minutes, corresponding to the time William can store new memories.