REMEMBERING AND KNOWING THE PAST - A CASE-STUDY OF ISOLATED RETROGRADE-AMNESIA

We describe a patient, RM, who suddenly became amnesic for premorbid a utobiographic events in the absence of any known precipitating event. Learning abilities as well as semantic knowledge were normal. Knowledg e of famous facts and persons was good, although not perfect. Whether RM suffered from organic or psychogenic isolated retrograde amnesia (I RA) could not be established on the basis of available clinical and ne uropsychological elements. Regardless of its aetiology, RM's case resp ects the boundaries between semantic and episodic memory and so gives further support to the distinction between these two memory systems.