Visual memory-deficit amnesia: a distinct amnesic presentation and etiology.
We describe a form of amnesia, which we have called visual memory-deficit amnesia, that is caused by damage to areas of the visual system that store visual information. Because it is caused by a deficit in access to stored visual material and not by an impaired ability to encode or retrieve new material, it has the otherwise infrequent properties of a more severe retrograde than anterograde amnesia with no temporal gradient in the retrograde amnesia. Of the 11 cases of long-term visual memory loss found in the literature, all had amnesia extending beyond a loss of visual memory, often including a near total loss of pretraumatic episodic memory. Of the 6 cases in which both the severity of retrograde and anterograde amnesia and the temporal gradient of the retrograde amnesia were noted, 4 had a more severe retrograde amnesia with no temporal gradient and 2 had a less severe retrograde amnesia with a temporal gradient.
Rubin
D C
DC
Department of Experimental Psychology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0086, USA. rubin@psych.duke.edu
Greenberg
D L
DL
D000647:Amnesia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002544:Cerebral Infarction / Q000150:complications; D006259:Craniocerebral Trauma / Q000150:complications; D004660:Encephalitis / Q000150:complications; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D019579:Neocortex / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*