A man who has lost the ability of the brain to remember when receiving surgery with a dentist

ByHsan Khakbaz H.

The dentist needs surgery to treat the teeth, but the man "William (tentative name)" who lives in the UK is treated by the dentist who visits for treatment as a trigger, and everything that happened after that It seems that I can not memorize events.

BBC - Future - 'My dentist saved my tooth, but wiped my memory'
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150630-my-dentist-saved-my-tooth-but-stole-my-memory

Profound anterograde amnesia following routine anesthetic and dental procedure: a new classification of amnesia characterized by intermediate-to-la ... - PubMed - NCBI
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25978125

William, a British Air Force soldier, was stationed in Germany under military duty. William, who was temporarily returning home for my grandfather's funeral, will return to Germany again on March 14, 2005, the day after the funeral. On the morning of the day, I visited the gym and sweat in volleyball, then I went into the office and checked my e-mail. After that I visited the dentist and was supposed to undergo a surgery on the root canal.

William who visits the dentist sits on the surgical chair around 13:40. Before starting surgery, the dentist performed local anesthesia to William, but this anesthesia will have a big influence on William afterwards. About the incident of the day William says "I sit in a chair for surgery and I remember the doctor performed local anesthesia", but this is the last memory he has. No matter what happens, his brain does not memorize them, and all the memories have been forgotten one after another in a short period of time. Memory after surgery became completely blank, and the flow of his time was completely stopped from that moment.

ByShannon O'Toole

On the day of surgery, the dentist who finished treatment could not understand at all what was the problem. When surgery was over, when asked to remove protective eyeglasses, it says that William's face did not stand still in a pure blue state. The situation was strange, so William's wife, Samantha, was called to the hospital.

About the situation, my wife Samantha said, "William was laying on a chair, he looked like I was surprised to see me, looking at me, I did not understand what is going on at all." I will review it. On the evening of that day, he was brought to the hospital soon and I decided to spend three days from that day. Meanwhile, the appearance of his ambiguous consciousness seemed to be improved, but it was decided to remain in a state where I could not remember what happened just a few minutes ago.

ByCharis Tsevis

Since surgery, William has become unable to keep all memories for over 90 minutes. Since memories before surgery remain normal, I remember about the first time I met Mr. York in briefings held at the Ministry of Defense in the past, but I can not have the memory of the last time. I can not even remember where I live now, and every time I wake up every morning, I hear that the state of thinking "I live in Germany and have a dentist's appointment today" is continuing .

ByStrep 72

For him who can not have a memory of personal circumstances that occur one after another, the passing time has no meaning at all. Since we lost the ability to memorize, William can recognize that there is something wrong with him, because "First Thing - read this (first of all reading this)," the wife recorded the incident in detail to him, It says that there is a note written that "

Since this incident, his memory has become very fleeting like a book written in fading ink. From this one case where local anesthesia performed by a dentist had a significant influence on his memory ability, it became known that the brain has learned that a deeper portion is still being known in the brain .

◆ The memory capacity has gone
Initially, it is said that brain hemorrhage occurred due to the adverse effects of anesthesia, but that trace was not found for the moment. William, who was to be removed from the mission, returned to the UK and was a clinical psychologist at Leicester UniversityGerald BurgessI got a doctor's diagnosis.

William's symptoms can not remember events from one point to the nextAnterograde amnesiaIt was considered to be in the state of. This is a famous person who also had obstacles in memory and later left significant accomplishments in elucidating the mechanisms of the brain and memoryHenry MIt was considered to be the same thing.

Henry M has the symptoms of severe epilepsy and has been showing symptoms of anterograde amnesia since removing the "hippocampus" of the brain when receiving surgery to ameliorate this. This hippocampus preserves various events over the long termEpisode memoryIt is said that he has an important role with regard to Henry M. He was a person who could no longer remember what happened after surgery.

ByAlice Popkorn

However, in the brain of William, the hippocampus has not been damaged, and many of the symptoms that he showed are not consistent with anterograde amnesia have been confirmed. Henry is a kind of another long-term memory instead of having the immediate memoryProcedure memoryThe ability was left, and even after losing the memory ability I was able to have a memory of the "learn by body" type.

In the case of William of the other, Dr. Burgess will let him to solve a complicated maze, but after three days it will be completely inaudible. Dr. Burgess says, "It's almost like a" deja vu "that shows the same mistake again, he needs to spend the same amount of time to remember the same thing."

One of the possible reasons was that William's amnestic condition was "psychogenic". This is the case when there was a hard experience in the pasttraumaIt is said that the mechanism that refuses to remember that memory works, but according to William's wife, Samantha, William has no such event, and even Burgess doctor's consultation " William is in a state of mental health, and there are no factors to think that he has a psychological problem. "

ByNicolas Raymond

Dr. Burgess is based on William's symptoms and its cause forms the nerve tissue of the brainSynapseIt seems to believe that it is hidden in. It is thought that a new event first enters the hippocampus of the brain and thereafter it is transferred to the surrounding tissues of the complex brain structure to establish it as a long-term memory. In this fixing process, when a new memory is formed, a new protein is created and a synapse is constructed. However, if this protein is not present, memory is very unstable It is known to become.

It is thought that the period of time that memory can be held in the absence of protein is about 90 minutes, but this time almost agrees with the length of time William can keep memory. From this, it seems that William lost the process of long-term memory with a different mechanism from Henry without hippocampus.

ByDarkday

Although the mechanism was elucidated to a certain extent, the point that still remains a mystery is "Why local anesthesia deprived the memory ability?" According to Dr. Burgess, as in William, five cases of memory loss without brain injury have been reported so far, but in both cases there is nothing to do with dentist treatment at all. About William's case Dr. Burgess is speculating on the cause, "It is due to a genetic tendency that requires some kind of trigger to cause symptoms."

Dr. BurgessArticle published in Neurocase · Journal magazineHe said he hoped that similar symptoms will be reported as a trigger, and he said that some information was actually received.

Looking at one case of William this time, I realize that science has not yet understood almost anything about the brain. By "color MRI" that can see the movement of the brain in color images, the human brain has functions that are divided for each part, such as "memory", "terror", "sex" I understand, but apparently I feel that way of thinking seems to be overly simplified. Even in the brain that maintains its perfect state, it turns out that the event of losing the flow of time like William happens is happening, and more research is necessary to understand all of the brain It has been with.

ByAllan Ajifo

Also, from William's case, he says that he was able to know the strength of feelings of human beings. Ten years have passed since symptoms appeared, but William experienced the death of her father. William was to be hit by great sorrow, but why was it that another new memory circuit was formed in his brain, the death of his father would be engraved in his memory It is said that. On the other hand, it seems that the situation that the other events are completely forgotten continues, and it seems that how the brain works is also complicated from here.

William has a daughter and son who will be 21 and 18 years old, but he said that he needs to "tell" that as everyday. In William's memory, the two are still small children, but William says he wishes that the rest of the children's life will not go away from him. William said, "I'd like to walk the virgin road with my daughter and remember that for a long time, I would like to remember that the children became parents, that I got my grandchildren, and who the grandchildren are. That's right.