for National Geographic News Amnesia may rob people of their
imaginations as well as their memories, new research suggests.
"What we've shown is that people with amnesia really are stuck
in the present," said lead study author Eleanor Maguire of the
Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College
London. "They can't recall the past, and now it seems that they
can't even imagine the future or indeed richly imagine even
fictitious experiences." Amnesia, which is sometimes temporary,
describes several conditions that involve partial or complete
memory loss. Brain damage, tumors, strokes, or even
psychological issues that cause the brain to black out
disturbing memories can cause the effect. (Related: "Beyond the
Brain" in National Geographic magazine.) Reporting this week in
the online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, Maguire and colleagues examined patients
who were "profoundly amnesic." These patients were unable to
acquire any new memories. Several of the am