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HM - CASE STUDY - Coggle Diagram
HM - CASE STUDY
Background
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at 23, he agreed to a surgery on his hippocampus which was successful in that his number of seizures reduced
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Surgery
William beacher performed surgery in 1953 and removed the temporal lobe, which is associated with auditory processing.
he had 8cm of brain tissue in the hippocampus removed, also possibly destroying the uncus, which controls sense of smell and emotions
his surgery was successful as his seizures were severely reduced but he was unable to form new memories
After-effects
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he was the only non-psychotic patient who'd had this surgery and exhibited such a degree of memory impairment
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in the 'star-tracing task' Milner tested if HM's procedural memory was affected by the removal of the hippocampus during surgery.
HM performed the test faster and with fewer errors after practice - even though he had no memory of completing it
HM had lost his declarative/explicit memory, but his unconscious memory remained intact
Legacy
up until HM's surgery, it was thought that that the hippocampus wasnt important for memories and if it was lost - we'd live moment to moment
when HM went into surgery, he gave his consent for people to study him for the rest of him life
after he died, he donated him brain to science and they froze it
in a 53 hour procedure, they cut it into 2401 slices, which were all photographed and made a 3D map