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 Author SJ Watson talks about long-term memory loss

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Author SJ Watson talks about long-term memory loss Vide
PostSubject: Author SJ Watson talks about long-term memory loss   Author SJ Watson talks about long-term memory loss Icon_minitimeFri Mar 09, 2012 11:28 pm

"As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I'm still a child. Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me."

Author SJ Watson talks about long-term memory loss 58839262stevenwatson



These are the thoughts of Christine, the main character and narrator in SJ Watson's current, best-selling debut novel, Before I Go To Sleep.

She has recurrent memory loss, losing all knowledge of her past from one day to the next.

As a result, she wakes each day not knowing where she is or how she got there. Or that the man lying next to her in bed is her husband of more than 20 years.

But does this form of memory loss actually exist?

"I thought I'd made it up," says the author Steven Watson. "But there are people who do seem to have similar conditions. There are many ways in which the memory works which we do not yet understand."

Watson was inspired by an obituary of Henry Gustav Molaison who, since undergoing surgery for epilepsy in 1953, had been unable to form new memories. Until his death at the age of 82 in 2008, he lived constantly in the past.

"I thought what it must have been like to have no recollection at all of the intervening years. It was a 'lightbulb moment', a story with a magnetic quality."

He also read and researched the case of Clive Wearing, a British conductor and musician who has suffered severe amnesia since contracting a brain infection in 1985. His memory lasts little more than 10 seconds at a time, making him forget people he has just seen moments earlier.
Identity

Watson says he realised that memories are at the root of who we are.

"I was struck by how fundamental to our sense of self is the ability to recall our experiences, how bewildering it must be to be stranded in time, with no knowledge of one's past.

"I also realised how common this type of condition really is. People with Alzheimer's have problems with loss of memory all the time, but somehow it's more shocking in a younger person - and yet it shouldn't be."

Geraint Jones, from south Wales, knows exactly what it is like to suffer from memory loss.

He was 19 when he was attacked coming home from a nightclub. He sustained a severe brain injury and spent a week on life support.

"I couldn't remember anything when I came round. I still have no memory of the attack now. I didn't even recognise my parents when they visited me."

Geraint was in hospital for six weeks in total, but he only remembers the last week of his stay.

"That's when I really woke up. Until then, I was in and out of consciousness."

Eight years on and he still suffers from short-term memory loss. Damage to the frontal lobes of his brain has affected his balance, co-ordination and speech too.

"Some days are bad. Sometimes I can't remember what I did yesterday and I get really frustrated."
'Limited recovery'

Prof David Shanks, from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, explains that the part of the brain called the hippocampus determines how well our memories work.

As we get older, cells are lost from the hippocampus at an accelerating rate but for most people, this results in mild memory loss at an advanced age.

More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17231436

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