Disorders of Memory

Catalog description

In his 1882 treatise on Diseases of Memory, Ribot wrote that “the disorders and maladies of this faculty, when classified and properly understood, are no longer to be regarded as a collection of amusing anecdotes of only passing interest. They will be found to be regulated by certain laws which constitute the very basis of memory and from which its mechanism is easily laid bare.” In that spirit, this seminar will examine how both organic (e.g., Korsakoff syndrome, herpes encephalitis, semantic dementia) and functional (e.g., fugue, posthypnotic amnesia, multiple personality disorder) amnesias can inform our understanding of human memory.