amnesia

n. Defect in acquiring new memories. It can be interpreted as a failure in transferring information to a long-term memory system. It is generally associated with some degree of retrograde amnesia. Anterograde amnesia can be observed in diverse pathological conditions, such as traumatic head injury, Alzheimer’s disease, and Korsakoff’s syndrome, but some degree of anterograde amnesia can also be found during normal aging. Memories for events that occurred before the pathological condition (e.g., the head injury) can be spared, but the patient is partially or totally unable to acquire new memories for the events occurring after the pathological condition. Anterograde amnesia usually impairs semantic memory (memories mediated through a semantic system, such as verbal memory) and episodic memory (memory for events), but procedural memory (skills and habits) is usually relatively well preserved. Anterograde amnesia is observed in cases of damage of different structures of the so-called brain memory system, such as the hippocampus, the fornix, and the mammillary bodies. Anterograde amnesia can also be observed in cases of frontal lobe pathology - particularly damage of the basal areas - and also the dorsomedial nucleus of the thalamus. - AA
▶ See also AMNESIA