TRANSIENT MEMORY LOSS FOR PEOPLE

A patient had transient memory loss for close family members. She coul d not even recognise their names as familiar. Her everyday memory was relatively preserved and she retained a clear recollection of the epis ode. Standard and sleep deprived EEG showed a mild abnormality of the left temporal lobe. Neuropsychological :testing found evidence for a m ild verbal memory impairment. The findings provide further evidence fo r the fractionation of transient forms of amnesia, support the dissoci ation of semantic/retrograde amnesia from episodic/anterograde amnesia , and offer evidence in favour of a left temporal lobe site for retrie val of past memories relating to the identification of people.