Skip to main content
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences logoLink to Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
. 2001 Sep 29;356(1413):1409–1421. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2001.0942

The loss of episodic memories in retrograde amnesia: single-case and group studies.

M D Kopelman 1, N Kapur 1
PMCID: PMC1088524  PMID: 11571032

Abstract

Retrograde amnesia in neurological disorders is a perplexing and fascinating research topic. The severity of retrograde amnesia is not well correlated with that of anterograde amnesia, and there can be disproportionate impairments of either. Within retrograde amnesia, there are various dissociations which have been claimed-for example, between the more autobiographical (episodic) and more semantic components of memory. However, the associations of different types of retrograde amnesia are also important, and clarification of these issues is confounded by the fact that retrograde amnesia seems to be particularly vulnerable to psychogenic factors. Large frontal and temporal lobe lesions have been postulated as critical in producing retrograde amnesia. Theories of retrograde amnesia have encompassed storage versus access disruption, physiological processes of 'consolidation', the progressive transformation of episodic memories into a more 'semantic' form, and multiple-trace theory. Single-case investigations, group studies and various forms of neuroimaging can all contribute to the resolution of these controversies.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (205.5 KB).


Articles from Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B are provided here courtesy of The Royal Society

RESOURCES