His ability to perceive what he saw and heard was unimpaired. But he did not seem to be able to retain any impression of anything for more than a few blink. In he did blink, his eyelids parted to reveal a new scene.
In Clive’s case, the virus damaged his brain. It damaged the hippocampus, which play a major role in the handling of long-term memory formation. Additionally he sustained marginal damage to the temporal and frontal lobes. The former houses the amygdala, a component implicated in the control of emotions and associated memories.
Clive developed a profound case of total amnesia as a result of his illness. Because the part of the brain required to transfer memories from the working to the long term area in damaged. He is unable to encode new memories. He only remembers a little part of his life before. He still knows how to play piano, which is because his cerebellum responsible for the maintenance of procedural is not damaged.
The fact that he could no longer remember anything and was not aware, tells us that the hippocampus and the temporal …show more content…
In HM’s case only two thirds of the hippocampus was removed while in Clive’s case most of it was destroyed. As a result both had very severe amnesia and because of that we can conclude that hippocampus is the part of the brain responsible for forming/retrieving or storing the LTM. This is an example of the link between cognition and physiology of the brain. However, certain exceptions make this theory a lot more complex. For example HM had remembered JFK’s assassination and both could still learn new skills. In Clive’s case, the fact that he could still emotionally remember his wife does not fit into the former