Lacunar amnesia is the loss of memory about one specific event. It is a type of amnesia that leaves a lacuna (a gap) in the record of memory in the cortex region of the brain. The cause of this type of amnesia is the result of brain damage to the limbic system which control our memories and emotions.
Characteristics
According to Steven Johnson, (the author of Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life):
Scientists believe memories are captured and stored by two separate parts of the brain, the hippocampus, the normal seat of memory, and the amygdala, one of the brain's emotional centers. People who, due to hippocampus damage, are incapable of forming long-term memories can still form subconscious memories of traumatic events if their amygdala is intact. Someone suffering from the Memento condition would likely have a feeling of general unease encountering a person who had harmed them in the past, though they wouldn't be able to put their finger on why. As the plot of Eternal Sunshine correctly suggests, the brain is designed to preserve emotionally strong memories. Even amnesiacs, under the right circumstances, can remember their past feelings.
Furthermore, according to Alex Chadwick speaking on NPR:
Some scientists now believe that memories effectively get rewritten every time they're activated. Studies on rats suggest that if you block a crucial chemical process during the execution of a learned behavior - pushing a lever to get food, for instance - the learned behavior disappears. The rat stops remembering. Theoretically, if you could block that chemical reaction in a human brain while triggering a specific memory, you could make a targeted erasure. Think of a dreadful fight with your girlfriend while blocking that chemical reaction, and zap! The memory's gone.[1]
Daniel Goleman, in his book Vital Lies, Simple Truths, defines a lacuna as :
... lacuna, from the Latin for gap or hole, to refer to the sort of mental apparatus that diversionary schemas represent. A lacuna is, then, the attentional mechanism that creates a defensive gap in awareness. Lacunas, in short, create blind spots[2]
Popular culture
This type of amnesia is used as a plot element in the 2004 movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which a company (appropriately named Lacuna) offers the removal of all memories of a specific person from someone's memory.
References
^Analysis: Concepts in memory-loss movies not so far-fetched, NPR Special; 3/23/2004; Alex Chadwick.
^Vital Lies, Simple Truths : The Psychology of Self-Deception, Bloomsbury; 1985; Daniel Goleman, Ph.D.
This cognitive psychology-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
v
t
e
This abnormal psychology–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
v
t
e
UpToDate Contents
全文を閲覧するには購読必要です。 To read the full text you will need to subscribe.
… repetitive questioning, and retrograde amnesia is more prominent than anterograde . These seizures are believed to arise from the mesial temporal lobe; some patients with epileptic amnesia also have interictal …
… subtypes of dissociative amnesia , there are two basic clinical presentations : Overt generalized or dense-localized dissociative amnesia (Type 1) Covert dissociative amnesia (Type 2) Patients with …
… by retrograde amnesia, without other cognitive or focal neurologic impairment. The amnesia resolves within 24 hours. Most patients are middle aged or older adults. Episodes are usually not recurrent, but…
…include slurred speech, incoordination, unsteady gait, and cognitive impairment (in particular, anterograde amnesia or the inability to create new memories). Benzodiazepine intoxication is reviewed separately …
… The amnesia almost always involves loss of memory for the traumatic event and frequently includes loss of recall for events immediately before (retrograde amnesia) and after (anterograde amnesia) the …
English Journal
A Case of Transient Global Amnesia with Small Left Putamen Infarction.
, Y Y, K K, K K, .
Journal of stroke and cerebrovascular diseases : the official journal of National Stroke Association. 2017 Jan;26(1)e27-e28.
A 67-year-old right-handed woman experienced a sudden anterograde and retrograde short-term memory deficit that recovered on the next day. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed a spotty high-intensity lesion in the left putamen in the diffusion-weighted and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery imag
Detection of cerebral amyloid angiopathy by 3-T magnetic resonance imaging and amyloid positron emission tomography in a patient with subcortical ischaemic vascular dementia.
Kida H, Satoh M, Ii Y, Fukuyama H, Maeda M, Tomimoto H.
Psychogeriatrics : the official journal of the Japanese Psychogeriatric Society. 2017 Jan;17(1)70-72.
The patient was an 81-year-old man who had been treated for hypertension for several decades. In 2012, he developed gait disturbance and mild amnesia. One year later, his gait disturbance worsened, and he developed urinary incontinence. Conventional brain magnetic resonance imaging using T -weighte
Transient Global Amnesia After Cerebral Angiography With Iomeprol: A Case Report.
Tiu C, Terecoasă EO, Grecu N, Dorobăţ B, Marinescu AN, Băjenaru OA.
Medicine. 2016 May;95(19)e3590.
Transient global amnesia is now considered a very rare complication of cerebral angiography. Various etiological mechanisms have been suggested to account for this complication, but no consensus has been reached yet. This case report documents one of the few reported cases of cerebral angiography-re
dissociative amnesia the most common of the dissociative disorders; it is usually a response to some stress, such as a threat of injury, an unacceptable impulse, or an intolerable situation. The patient suddenly cannot recall ...
Causes of Lacunar Amnesia Lacunar amnesia is unlike general amnesia, which usually involves memory loss from a physical ailment such as brain trauma or disease. Lacunar amnesia is neuropsychological, which means it is not ...
Lacunar amnesia was a psychological condition and form of amnesia that occurred when a patient witnessed an act of violence so horrible that instead of processing it normally, they acted as though it had not happened. Dr. McCoy's ...