Brain Bites

The Forgetful Brain 

Om Baniya

Brain is the most powerful organ of the human body. Brain is basically a physical organ, safely secured in head, composed of flesh and blood. It should not be confused with the mind. The brain is a physical organ like any other organ of the body while mind is a non-physical entity. The brain is the hardware, the mind is the software. 

Brain is also memory bank.  Memory is stored and processed throughout the brain. Different memory functions have been localized to distinct areas of the brain. There are three main ways information store in the memory bank: from seeing, from hearing, from doing. These three types of memory are called, auditory memory, visual memory and kinaesthetic memory.  

Most auditory memories are stored in the left-side of the brain’s neocortex, and most visual memories are stored in the right-side. Most kinaesthetic memories are stored out sides the neocortex, in the cerebellum.

Momories are shipped to long-term memory bank by the limbic system.

Brain has huge capacity to store information. But due to several causes it becomes partially or totally forgetful. Forgetfulness is a persistent failure to remember. It results from changes in the brain and can be a normal part of aging or a symptom of another condition or disease. Common causes of forgetfulness include aging, side effects from medications, trauma, vitamin deficiencies, strokes, cancer in the brain, and infections in the brain, as well as a variety of other disorders and diseases. Amnesia (amnestic disorders) is the medical term associated with forgetting. 

Generally amnesia can be divided into two types: organic amnesia and psychogenic amnesia.

Organic Amnesias: organic amnesias are caused by brain injury, disease, or mental deterioration.  People who suffer from organic amnesias usually forget both personal information (such as where they were born) and general information(such as the name of the current prime minister). Organic amnesias are characterized by anterograde amnesias, the inability to recall new information and events that occurred after a trauma, though sometimes retrograde amnesia, the inability to recall events that occurred before a trauma is also present.

The movies ‘ Memento’, ‘So far dates’, ‘Finding Nemo’, ‘30 Rock’ and the Bollywood movie ‘Ghajini’ personified by Aamir khan prong towards an eminent brain disorder-Anterograde Amnesia. Frequently tagged as ‘Short Term Memory Loss’.

The main causes of organic amnesias:

Any disease or injury that affects the brain can interfere with the intricacies of memory. Memory function engages many different parts of the brain simultaneously. Damage to brain structures that form the limbic system, the hippocampus and thalamus, can lead to amnesia - the limbic system controls our emotions and memories. There are many reasons which can be the cause of amnesia and these are some of them.

Brain injury: The leading cause of amnesia is an injury to the head. The severity of amnesia depends on the severity of the head injury. Amnesia caused by mildhead injuries usually resolves quickly and spontaneously. Korsakoff’s syndrome: it is a form of anterograde amnesia caused by chronic alcoholism. Delirium and dementia: these mental disorders frequently associated with aging, often involve amnesia as a result of brain disease or deterioration. Emotional shock or hysteria, Brain surgery and drugs etc are others causesof memory loss.

The common factor in all the above causes is that it has affected the brain in some or the other manner. As there is damage to the brain cells and deterioration of cells causes the loss of memory. Brain injury can happen due to some vehicle accident or due to some fall or a blow on the head. Alzheimer sufferers are the worst hit with memory loss as it is the first thing which the disease hits upon. Firstly they would lose memory on the current events and later in the advanced stages of Alzheimer the long term memory is affected. 

Psychogenic Amnesias:

Organic amnesias are caused by biological factors such as a head injury, or neurological illness-while psychogenic amnesia(dissociative amnesia) is caused by psychological factors (stressful events). People with psychogenic amnesia usually experience only retrograde amnesia, meaning that they cannot remember what happened before the event that caused their amnesia. People who suffer from this type of amnesia typically forget only personal information. In the English film ‘spellbound’, Gregory Peck played a man with dissociative amnesia. Dissociative amnesia can take many forms: localized amnesia, selective amnesia, generalized amnesia, continuous amnesia and systematic amnesia.

Prevention and treatment:

Prevention is better than cure. Brain health Lifestyle minimizes the risk of amnestic disorders. A healthy Brain will have less of damages due to strokes or seizures which occur due to the blockages in the heart. When all kind of brain damages and Stressful events are avoided, Amnesia can be prevented. Treatment of amnesia depends upon the cause of amnesia and diagnosis is done on that basis. If it is a brain injury due to some physical causes like accident or fall then it has to be treated immediately by the neurologist and neurosurgeon. But, emotional trauma can be cured or helped through psychological therapies. Hypnotherapy, a kind of psychotherapy has played an active role in getting people's memory back. Medicine and memory training have also been important factors in helping people regain their memory. (Dr. Baniya is a Psychotherapist and Chief at Memory LAB)