A particularly well-documented, intelligent patient (H.I.) with very s
elective, minute, but most likely bilateral damage of the basal forebr
ain including the septal region is presented. Though behavioral progre
ss was found for a number of areas, she remained deficient, especially
in long-term memory. The severest and largely modality-nonspecific de
ficits were observed in recall (as opposed to recognition) situations.
As a peculiar finding which we would attribute to septal damage, H.I.
was mainly affected in tests containing emotional (especially emotion
ally negative) stimuli, or certain flavours. While this involvement mi
ght have helped her in memorizing material judged as positive, it was
of negative influence under other circumstances. The septal area may s
erve as an interface contributing a specific combination of emotional
flavour and evaluating (feedback)judgement to a larger (septo-hippocam
pal-amygdalar) memory and learning processing network.