Definition of Anterograde Amnesia

The human brain is the great computer of our organism. It intervenes and regulates all activities: movement, language, emotions, reasoning... And the memory It is one of the mental functions that are organized in the brain.

Memory allows us to assimilate information, order it and retain it. You could say that memory is our store of information that we handle. Through it, we have the ability to place ourselves in the scheme of past, present and future.

However, memory has alterations, that is, failures. It is not about small errors when not remembering a specific data, but about pathologies. There are several types of problems that affect memory. One of them is amnesia, which consists of not remembering some type of information.

There are several forms of amnesia, since the concept of memory is itself very broad. Amnesia is anterograde in cases where recent events are not remembered. The individual affected by this amnesia has memories of the past with full normality, on the other hand, he does not assimilate the closest information. It is a peculiar pathology, since the information not stored is the facts, the events and not a specific data. Thus, a patient with anterograde amnesia does not remember a conversation that has been held for an hour, but is capable of

learn a new game.

Anterograde amnesia is caused by some type of brain damage, usually aneurysms. This ailment seriously affects the daily life of those who suffer from it. To partially solve the inconvenience of not remembering recent events, patients have to write down or record what happens to them throughout the day. So they can have some control over their lives. It must be borne in mind that this amnesia forces us to live in the most immediate present. The recent past is forgotten and only the most remote past exists, the memories prior to the onset of anterograde amnesia.

A variant of anterograde amnesia is Korsakoff Syndrome. It is an alteration of recent memory caused by the abuse of alcohol.

The concept of anterograde amnesia is contrasted with retrograde amnesia, the latter consisting of the impossibility of remembering the past, there being no problem when retaining the information of the Present. Both one amnesia and another are serious, since memory is the basis of who we are. Without close or distant memories we stop being ourselves. Our identity as individuals it is based on memory.

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