Amnesia Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Amnesia, including details on memory loss, causes, treatment, brain injury,.

Drug-induced amnesia impairs implicit relational memory.

Chun MM

Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8205, USA. marvin.chun@yale.edu

Amnesic patients have difficulty consciously recollecting past events, but they perform normally on implicit memory measures that do not require conscious access. Now, an innovative study offers compelling evidence that even implicit memory can be impaired during amnesia, temporarily induced in healthy subjects using a neuropharmacological manipulation (midazolam). Importantly, midazolam impaired implicit, relational memory, whereas non-relational memory was preserved, supporting the characterization of conscious memory in terms of relational encoding.

Published 2 August 2005 in Trends Cogn Sci, 9(8): 355-7.
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