Why do people suddenly lose memory?

Find out the causes of dementia through the strange stories of patients.

The solution to the sudden loss of memory in humans

Memory loss is one of those diseases that is no longer strange to us. Many people believe that the cause of this dementia is because of a brain injury in accidents.

In fact, dementia has many types: short-term memory loss, unable to remember new memories . Besides, the causes of dementia are also diverse, not only due to trauma. as you often see.

From real stories .

One of the most notable cases of short-term memory loss is Naomi Jacobs, a 32-year-old British woman. One morning in 2008, Naomi (then 32) woke up with all the memories of the past 17 years.

At this time, she had the subconscious mind of a 15 year old girl. Naomi confirmed that the previous night, she was a teenager. Before going to bed, she spent some time thinking about the upcoming French test, on the bed that she used to sleep with her sister.

Strange phenomena make Naomi Jacobs "relive" teen days

About 8 weeks later, the present memory returned to Naomi. But before that happens, Naomi tells her that she had to work hard to get used to life.

She had to 'learn' to use new technologies such as smartphones and especially to try to accept the fact that she had a 10-year-old son.

. to the explanations on the medical point of view

Experts still have no physiological explanation about why Naomi lost her memory for 17 years. However, according to experts, Naomi's amnesia is considered a case of dissociated amnesia.

This phenomenon can be caused by past stresses and trauma . In fact, not only did Naomi forget that she had lost her job, abused drugs but also been raped when she was 6 and nearly strangled by her boyfriend when she was 20 years old.

Distributed memory loss is still a controversial diagnosis. According to some scholars, including Harrison Pope - Harvard psychiatrist said that, until 1800, there was no reference to any case of amnesia.

Others are skeptical, demented amnesia, including personality disorders - previously known as multiple personality disorders . The cause of the phenomenon is not the psychological trauma but the deep thoughts of the patients' subconscious about how they should behave, in part because of the suggestions of therapists and illusions. about the disease.

In addition, people diagnosed with a disordered disorder often have symptoms of personality disorder and psychological instability.

They are often sensitive and delusional . During her memory loss, Naomi was studying psychology. Perhaps this is why she has ideas related to psychological trauma and memory function.

Another amazing case of dementia is recorded for a patient who survived the accident. After the crash, the patient reported that her memory was erased every night.

This disease was mentioned in the movie " 50 First Dates" in 2004. Many people believe that this patient is ill because he wants to imitate his idol actor.

However, by using a few tricks to check the patient's memory, the experts were amazed at the existence of this strange phenomenon.

Extremely rare cases of psychological or amnesia. More common phenomenon of systemic memory loss , caused by brain damage or neurological diseases such as stroke.

When this patient comes to see, their problem is facing not the memory loss of a part of the past, or forgetting who they are, but that they cannot form new memories.

This temporary memory loss is often caused by injury in the hippocampus. It is a structure inside the temporal lobe - the hippocampus region is involved in the retention of information and the formation of memories in the long-term memory and spatial orientation of each person.

One of the most studied patients with dementia is probably Henry Molaison. Due to epilepsy , Molaison had to perform an operation to remove most of the hippocampus in her brain. This helped Molaison escape the convulsions but made him stuck in the present permanent.

Although I still remember my identity and basic information, most of Molaison's new memories did not last more than a few seconds. In addition, after surgery the pain tolerance of Molaison becomes abnormally high. The cause of this phenomenon is the Amygdala lymph nodes - part of Molaison's hippocampus has been removed.

Human hippocampus image.

Amygdala is an almond-shaped structure that plays an important role in forming fear and other emotional states, including pain.

Besides the trauma, drug abuse and alcoholic drinks are some of the typical causes that can cause memory loss. Long-term alcoholism is likely to cause Korsakoff syndrome - a dangerous syndrome that destroys old memories and impedes the ability to remember new memories.

People with this syndrome will always be obsessed with the complete fiction, but they are always right.

In addition, a rare case of dementia is caused by a decrease in blood flow to organs in the brain. A 54-year-old woman had met this case after having a "bloody" relationship .

In fact, each of us is a patient of dementia. Very few people can clearly remember their memories in the period before they were 3 years old. But this is not entirely a disease. We lost most of our memories when we were young because of maturity in memory function.

* The article expresses the views of Christian Jarrett Psychology Professor posted on the BBC.