April 23, 2013

Gone, But Not Forgotten




UC San Diego scientists recall EP, perhaps the world’s second-most famous amnesiac

An international team of neuroscientists has described for the first time in exhaustive detail the underlying neurobiology of an amnesiac who suffered from profound memory loss after damage to key portions of his brain.

Writing in this week’s Online Early Edition of PNAS, principal investigator Larry R. Squire, PhD, professor in the departments of Neurosciences, Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Veteran Affairs San Diego Healthcare System (VASDHS) – with colleagues at UC Davis and the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Spain – recount the case of EP, a man who suffered radical memory loss and dysfunction following a bout of viral encephalitis.