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Amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage or brain diseases, [1] but it can also be temporarily caused by the use of various sedative and hypnotic drugs. The memory can be either wholly or partially lost due to the extent of damage that is caused. [2] There are two main types of amnesia:
Both substance use and alcohol can cause both long-term and short-term memory loss, resulting in blackouts. The most commonly used group of prescription drugs which can produce amnesia are benzodiazepines, especially if combined with alcohol, however, in limited quantities, triazolam (Halcion) is not associated with amnesia or memory impairment.
Korsakoff syndrome (KS) [1] is a disorder of the central nervous system characterized by amnesia, deficits in explicit memory, and confabulation.This neurological disorder is caused by a deficiency of thiamine (vitamin B 1) in the brain, and it is typically associated with and exacerbated by the prolonged, excessive ingestion of alcohol. [2]
A person experiencing TGA has memory impairment; with an inability to remember events or people from the past few minutes, hours or days (retrograde amnesia) and has working memory of only the past few minutes or less, thus they cannot retain new information or form new memories beyond that period of time (anterograde amnesia). [4]
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Vascular thalamic amnesia occurs when the thalamus is affected by Korsakoff's syndrome or damaged by lacunar infarcts or hemorrhages. [1] Another common cause for damage to the thalamus that may contribute to the development of amnesia is a stroke. [ 2 ]
The neurological cause of psychogenic amnesia is controversial. [5] [7] Even in cases of organic amnesia, where there is lesion or structural damage to the brain, caution must still be taken in defining causation, as only damage to areas of the brain crucial to memory processing is possible to result in memory impairment. [7]
Memory erasure has been shown to be possible in some experimental conditions; some of the techniques currently being investigated are: drug-induced amnesia, selective memory suppression, destruction of neurons, interruption of memory, reconsolidation, [1] and the disruption of specific molecular mechanisms.