How far would you go to remember your time?

It's a simple question, isn't it? By simple, I mean it's simple to pose the damn question. What would you give up to remember what you may learn. What would you exchange in order to make sure that you are able to recall this moment? In other words, it’s the same thing as asking what how precious is forming a new memory for you? It's a deep and existential question but it is also a highly practical one. It is a fair point to say that memory is important to survival. We live longer if we remember better. Today's article however is not about what someone did to preserve their ability to make new memories, rather what someone did to survive by giving up their ability to form new memories.

 I believe by now, the psychology bunch of my readers would have guessed who this article is about. It’s perhaps, the most well known case study in psychology. The case is of Henry Gustav Molaison, frequently memorized as 'H.M.' by psychology students all around the world. The case is well known for its details of Henry's behaviour before and after the removal of most of medial temporal lobes. I wonder at times, was Molaison ever consciously aware of what he lost in exchange for what he gained? Did he ever look back and reflect on it? I mean he couldn't form new memories, maybe he had a lot of content to reflect back on.

Keeping aside the philosophy of it all, I would like to talk about the psychological life of the person, of this landmark case study. He suffered from something we psychologists like to call anterograde amnesia. Now psychologists knew about anterograde amnesia before H.M. but what we did not know was the anatomical basis for this affliction. The credit for knowing this goes to the intuitive and clear mind of the legendary pioneer psychologist, Dr. Brenda Milner. It is said that she has a very clear vision of how things work and she has a very intuitive way of asking questions, even today, at the spry age of 102! This combination allowed her to work with Dr. Wilder Penfield and Dr. William Scoville to penetrate the issue of memory.

 H.M. suffered from epilepsy before he underwent surgery. It began with partial seizures and later turned into tonic-clonic seizures. He used to have a job and a social life. Both were taken from him due to his seizures. He took special medications for his seizures called anticonvulsants. However his conditions turned so severe that the medications were not able to help him much. He could not lead a normal life since the young age of just sixteen. To help him, Dr. Scoville suggested a lobotomy. He was able to successfully localize his seizures to the medial temporal region of the brain i.e., the origin of the seizure.

 After the surgery, H.M. felt a little better. It can be said with certainty that to a certain extent his quality of life did improve. The attack frequency dropped which is to say the medial temporal lobe epilepsy he suffered from wasn’t as rampant as before. However, this relief came at a cost. The cost of being able to commit new information to his declarative memory. H.M.'s working memory and procedural memory were fine. However, his semantic memory took a severe hit. To put it simply, if you could meet H.M. today and tell him your name by introducing yourself, he won't recognize when you meet him later.

 H.M. lost ability to commit any new information. Perhaps commit is the wrong word. It dictates a level of autonomy and control over what happened. Henry Molaison did not have a choice between choosing his memory and choosing a relatively pain-free prolonged life. However, such is life, often time we are all just stuck between a rock and a hard place. H.M.'s case described beautifully by Professor Milner in her 1950 to 1960's studies was able to re-affirm what the confident psychologists proclaimed at that time and made them re-consider a lot about the psychology of memory too. This would not have been possible without Dr. Milner's pioneering initiatives and of course the man with unique days for the rest of his life, H.M.