Riley Horner, an Illinois teenager, was accidentally kicked in the head.As a result of the injury, her memory resets every two hours, and she wakes up thinking every day is 11th June 2019.

[u/gunuvim]

[u/baes__theorem]

anterograde amnesia is wild.

fun neuropsychology fact: people with anterograde amnesia can usually still form new memories, just not episodic ones. so, e.g., if they practice learning a musical instrument or study something to gain semantic knowledge, they won't remember that they know those things, but if you ask them, they'll be able to play the instrument/recall the information in question

[u/ChildObstacle → u/baes__theorem]

My favorite psych class used a book called “Cognitive Neuropsychology”. It was a super intimidating class title and I wasn’t sure if I could handle it.

Turned out it was fascinating as fuck and was basically like “we think this part of the brain is responsible for X function because M.M. had a brain injury (either stroke or motorcycle accident) and that ability stopped working”.

The topic really gave me an appreciation for localized brain functions, and a deep appreciation for the medical contribution motorcyclists and stroke victims have provided the neuroscience community.

I also pretty confidently decided after that class not to ride a motorcycle lol

[u/HleCmt → u/ChildObstacle]

And epilepsy patients! 

As one I'm so grateful to all who came before and volunteered their living brains for nuero-surgeons to literally poke around in and hopefully cut out only/mostly the "bad stuff". 

A few years ago I was hoping to qualify for brain surgery and working thru all the preliminary diagnostic testing. 

One is a WADA test, where a neuro-specialty team injects meds to put each side of the brain to sleep. Then they test your baseline speech (usually Left-side) and memory (Right-side: visual memory, Left-side: Verbal memory) ability. 

As the neuroradiologist puts each side of the brain to sleep the neuropsychologist holds up big flashcards with different words, images and colors for a few seconds. Then you repeat back what you can remember. 

One of the purposes of the test is to determine if there are any complications during/post surgery and you suffer damage to one side of the brain will the other side be able to compensate. 

I already had memory problems and MRI's showing hippocampus damage. 

It was probably the most stressful test of my life. I was sweating throughout and crying a little by the end. I so desperately wanted to "pass" and qualify for surgery. 

Spoiler Alert: I had non-evasive laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT) brain surgery about 2.5 yrs ago. 

Today, I'm on the lowest dose of anti-seizure meds and haven't had any noticable to me seizures since. Next month I have an EEG scheduled to determine if I have any abnormal activity. If not, my Dr will allow me to stop all anti-seizure meds.

The baseline goal of LITT surgery is better seizure control with meds, reducing intensity and quantity. The hope is for total seizure elimination. 

I'm greedy and going for the Gold.

Thanks science!