Information AboutAmnesia |
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Amnesia (from Greek '''') (see Spelling Differences ) is a condition in which Memory is disturbed. The causes of amnesia are organic or functional. Organic causes include damage to the brain, through trauma or disease, or use of certain (generally sedative) drugs. Functional causes are psychological factors, such as Defense Mechanisms . Hysterical post-traumatic amnesia is an example of this. Amnesia may also be spontaneous, in the case of Transient Global Amnesia http://www.emedicine.com/neuro/topic380.htm . This global type of amnesia is more common in middle-aged to elderly people, particularly males, and usually lasts less than 24 hours. Another effect of amnesia is the inability to imagine the future. A recent study published online in the ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' shows that amnesiacs with damaged Hippocampi cannot imagine the future {Link without Title} . This is because when a normal human being imagines the future, they use their past experiences to construct a possible scenario. For example, a person who would try to imagine what would happen at a party that would occur in the near future would use their past experience at parties to help construct the event in the future. TYPES OF AMNESIA
:The terms are used to categorize patterns of symptoms, rather than to indicate a particular cause or s and especially the Hippocampus . :An example of mixed retrograde and anterograde amnesia may be a motorcyclist unable to recall driving his motorbike prior to his head injury (retrograde amnesia), nor can he recall the hospital ward where he is told he had conversations with family over the next two days (anterograde amnesia).
AMNESIA IN FICTION Amnesia is prevalent in many works of fiction. Global Amnesia is a common motif in fiction despite being extraordinarily rare in reality. Anterograde Amnesia features in the movies '' Memento '', '' Clean Slate '', and '' 50 First Dates '', and Lacunar Amnesia features in the movie '' Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind ''. In the first season of '' 24 '', a prominent character has dissociative amnesia. In the first season of Lost , a character is kidnapped and has amnesia upon returning. The TV show '' John Doe '' is based on an amnesiac who mysteriously appears in the middle of a sea. In '' The Bourne Identity '', the main character has Retrograde Amnesia . In the 1966 motion picture '' Mr. Buddwing '', the protagonist enters an amnesial fugue state in response to distress in his marital relationship. In the 2004 film '' The Forgotten '', adults struggle with memory loss about the existence of their children, who have been abducted for alien/government experiments. In the Marvel Comics series '' X-Men '', Wolverine , one of the main characters, has retrograde amenesia due to Brainwashing . In Season 4 of '' Smallville '', Clark has his memory wiped by a Summerholt patient. In Century Fox's animated film, Anastasia (1997), Anya suffers from amnesia as a result of having her head hit when trying to climb on train to escape to Paris with her grandmother as a young girl, and cannot recall the first eight years of her life. In movies and television, particularly Sitcom s, it is often depicted that a second hit to the head (similar to the first one) cures the amnesia. In reality, however, a second concussion would have catastrophic consequences, a phenomenon known as Second Impact Syndrome . Dissociative Amnesia plays a critical role in the novel '' Mysterious Skin '' and movie of the same name. Author Gene Wolfe addresses amnesia in the series '' Soldier Of The Mist '', where the main character Latro is injured during battle, causing relatively long term (24 hour) anterograde amnesia. In Japanese anime, amnesia is a common theme. '' The Big O '' is largely based on the premise of an entire city having lost their memory forty years prior. In '' Noir '', a girl named Kirika Yuumura loses her memory because the memories she had were too traumatic for her. Likewise, in both Madlax and Sukisyo , the main characters experienced amnesia because their pasts involve betraying someone dear to them. In all three of these cases, the characters went into an advanced state of shock once they gain their memories back; they adapted to their pasts in a homicidal fashion. In Loveless , the main character has no memories of the first ten or so years of his life, but never regains them. In Utawarerumono the main character has no memory before the series begins. He does not exactly get them back, save for in short bursts, showing several past homicides. These endeavors, with time, become accepted. In Spirited Away , the character Haku forgot everything about his life as a river spirit, along with his name, which restricted his freedom. There are countless other examples of this. SEE ALSO REFERENCES |
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