Agnosia
Agnosia is the inability to process sensory information. Often there is a loss of ability to recognize objects, persons, sounds, shapes, or smells while the specific sense is not defective nor is there any significant memory loss. It is usually associated with brain injury or neurological illness, particularly after damage to the occipitotemporal border, which is part of the ventral stream. Agnosia only affects a single modality, such as vision or hearing. More recently, a top-down interruption is considered to cause the disturbance of handling perceptual information.
Eating disorders and memory
Glucose is the preferred energy source for the brain, accounting for 25% of the body’s glucose consumption, despite being only 2% of the body’s total weight. Glucose, along with serotonin, have been found to have significant effects within the cingulate cortex, frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and parietal lobe regions of the brain, including in those with anorexia. Individuals with eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia show lower neural metabolism of glucose, possibly due to neural consequences of the disorder and/or due to heightened anxiety or depression. Studies have indicated the importance of glucose on memory, showing that reduced levels of glucose in the brain impair an individual’s ability to retrieve memories. Most evidence suggests that severe negative impairments are due to long term, prolonged glucose deprivation or restriction, such as those seen in individuals affected by eating disorders, however effects have been studied on a more short-term basis with negative memory impairments seen in individuals who consumed breakfast compared to those who did not.