Memory is one of the superior faculties of the human being. It has been considered like this since time immemorial, since the conservation and subsequent use of this compendium of knowledge has always been a true challenge for humanity. We are, to a large extent, an inheritance from what our ancestors were, and to make many decisions, consciously or unconsciously, we resort to our memory, that is, what we thought, did or lived before. An individual without memory is like a being adrift, with great risk of social maladjustment as well as isolation. A serious problem is not remembering or remembering only to a limited extent. However, who has not ever heard that “memory is the intelligence of the clumsy”. This contempt and serious error is linked to certain study methods based on mechanical storage, indiscriminately and without the intention of understanding what is being memorized. Regardless of this misconception, we can affirm that memory, linked to intelligence and conveniently stimulated, is essential in our lives, based on decision-making in which not only intuition intervenes but also the ability to think, together with the reflection that needs in turn to memories, recent and distant, precisely through memory. Memory preserves the past and updates it in the present. We are constantly fixing and evoking data. History exists through memory and man has one of its essences: historicity. From all this it can be concluded, the importance of knowing the causes as well as possible treatments of the different pathologies associated with memory.
In this paper, an analysis will be made of the different disorders not attributable to a normal process of forgetting, such as Amnesia, and its different types, and temporalities (temporary or permanent). Finally, we will deal with the case of the disease of alzheimers, which is one of the most frequent causes of permanent amnesia in today’s society.
Memory is essential for an intelligent life. There is no better reason than this affirmation for it to be the choice of the work to be carried out “The Psychopathologies of Memory”.
Discussion
As part of the mnesic process, it is included, as a counterfigure, the Forgot. The function of this is to prevent the overload of useless or little-used data in the memory store.
Following Ribot’s laws, the last thing learned is forgotten first. A rarely repeated memory loses evocation force. As a clear example, we have the case of languages: if it is not practiced, the terms learned are erased. A new stimulus that is associated by similarity, proximity, or temporality to everyday engrams is less likely to be forgotten. And likewise, relationships of meaning last longer than facts that are poorly understood or confused. It is easier to memorize if you get the main idea first and then the details. Active repetition, interest and concentration would facilitate memorization.
However, when the memory loss is not attributable to a normal forgetting process, it is affirmed that there is Amnesia -generic denomination.
We can define the Amnesia as the total or partial inability to register, retain or evoke information.
According to the areas covered, we can talk about various types of Amnesia:
total amnesia, the individual loses his memory completely, he forgets his life. Bergson said that: “…without memory I have no experience, no education, nor do I remember what I want to show…”. Consequently, without memory there is no character or personality or person.
Partial Amnesia, the individual forgets a short period of time, from a point backwards or forwards. This type of amnesia often occurs after seizures such as epilepsy or hysteria.
Lagoon Amnesia, the affected person forgets what happened before a traumatic event, taking only episodes or periods, and according to the type of memory involved, we will have the distinction between: anterograde or retrograde.
Anterograde amnesia, also called fixation amnesia, refers to the inability to learn new information after the onset of the disorder -usually organic- that gave rise to the amnesia. Forget at the same rate as events happen. By definition, it will affect short-term memory, while preserving memories prior to the disease.
In contrast, retrograde amnesia is forgetting what happened in the period prior to the disease. It is the affectation of the ability to evoke information and events well established before the onset of the disease. As we have previously mentioned, for Ribot, these memories would be lost in reverse order at the time of their acquisition. That is to say, the closest memories in time would disappear first, and the most remote ones last – childhood memories. It can cover even periods of fifteen years before the episode. The amnesic syndrome can be accompanied by apathy, lack of initiative and spontaneity.
Depending on the type of injury and its location, we can talk about different consequences taking into account the different systems and subsystems. In generic terms, we speak of short-term memory and long-term memory. Focusing on the MLP, At present it is not entirely clear which and of what type are the systems that are involved in the maintenance of information. Amnesic subjects seem to have problems in episodic memory, and mild in semantics. –Most of the concepts are learned early so they are not very altered.
Focusing on the MCPand following the structure proposed by Baddeley, in the case of damage to the phonological loop, the subjects will lose the ability to keep verbal information in their memory, which will give rise to difficulties at the linguistic level. If injury to the visuospatial agenda, subjects will have difficulty retaining the stimulus images in their memory. Finally, a central executive injury This will lead to the amnesiac having problems organizing and planning his actions and thoughts, since this system is in charge of combining automatic actions with other more voluntary actions, which if not remembered cannot be activated.
If we look at the distinction that he made Schacter (1987) –implicit memory or explicit memory- lSubjects with amnesia would not have implicit memory problems and would have explicit memory problems. Implicit memory is the one that is involved in any memory task and that does not require the conscious recall of any previous event. On the other hand, explicit memory requires the conscious recall of knowledge learned in a previous experience (it would be equivalent to episodic memory).
Regarding the processes of Encryption and Recovery, subjects with amnesic problems will present problems depending on which of these processes may be altered. Studies on localization of functions indicate that lRecovery problems often appear with lesions of the right frontal and parietal lobes -also present in patients with Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease-, while the coding problems appear with lesion of the left frontal, which will prevent them from remembering facts of their current life. It usually occurs in cases of Alzheimer’s dementia or Korsakoff syndrome.
Lcoding alterations They create difficulties in both recognition and recovery tasks since the information could not be stored. Alterations in recovery they allow a good execution in recognition tasks but not in those of free memory.
Finally, and taking into account the temporality, permanent or temporary, there are different types:
Amen. Temporary, A. Post-traumatic, after a state of lack of consciousness, the subject shows severe memory problems, disorientation and confusion. After a period of time, he will recover; Electroconvulsive therapyAfter the application of this therapy there is a period of amnesia that will vary depending on how the treatment has been administered; Transitory Global A., due to stress or strong emotional situations, as a consequence of a sudden depression of activity in the hippocampus. It can affect the anterograde -the usual- or the retrograde; A. Psychogenicof psychological origin -the least common- being the most usual the fugue states and cases of multiple personality.
Amen. Permanent, Korsakov SyndromeIt usually occurs in alcoholics and is caused by malnutrition typical of alcoholism, which produces a thiamine deficit, the cause of the syndrome. They will present anterograde and retrograde amnesia; Surgical interventionscan give rise to different amnesic syndromes; vascular problemsthe type of memory that will be affected will be related to the area of the brain affected by these problems; Anoxia and hypoglycemia, the lack of oxygen in the brain can produce permanent memory problems; Herpic encephalitis, herpes simplex usually attacks the temporal lobes when it settles in the brain, which can lead to memory problems, especially anterograde memory; Alzheimer’sa disease that, due to its relevance, will occupy a special section.
Causes and Current State of the Issue
Thanks to the integration of disciplines such as psychology, physiology, neuropsychology, pharmacology, morphology, or molecular biology, among others, it is currently possible to understand part of the malfunctioning of some of these systems in pathologies, of a degenerative type -Alzheimer, Pick or Korsakov-, and of a traumatic, cerebrovascular, or infectious type. The results of the functional studies have revealed that, due to both the number of structures involved and the network of nerve connections involved, the neuroanatomical, psychological and neurophysiological bases of memory are very complex and have not been fully explained.
Thus, pathologies that affect memory can be caused by deterioration that will have an organic or psychological cause. Amnesia, paramnesia, agnosia, apraxia, aphasia and hypermnesia are some of these diseases.
From the psychological point of viewAlthough there are different explanations for amnesia, currently the one that seems to be most valid is the one proposed by Mayes (1988). He proposes that amnesia represents a deficit in the use of contextual information. There is a distinction between intrinsic context, what needs to be remembered, and extrinsic context, what happened incidentally when you learned something. The latter refers to spatiotemporal attributes.
According to the studies, the difficulties that amnesiacs seem to show in remembering the extrinsic context would make it difficult to remember the implicit context.
From a neurological point of viewit has been verified that the Temporal lobe is related to information storage and retrieval functions. It is a brain area that has undergone few modifications throughout the evolutionary process of mammals and contains two main structures, which modulate…