Focal retrograde amnesia documented with matching anterograde and retrograde procedures

Focal retrograde amnesia is an unusual and theoretically challenging form o f memory disorder. The case of a 65-year-old woman presenting with focal re trograde amnesia is reported. Following a cardiac arrest and subsequent hyp oxia she remained in a coma for 24 h with evidence of epileptiform activity during the early recovery period. MR scans, 4 and 7 months post-onset, sho wed mild bifrontal atrophic changes mainly affecting white matter areas. An [F-18]fluorodeoxyglucose resting PET scan 1-year post-onset demonstrated r ight occipito-temporo-parietal hypometabolism. We were able to document the patient's performance on an extensive range of anterograde and retrograde tests and to monitor her recovery of function by assessing her performance at 4, 12 and 24 months post-onset. Spared anterograde memory was observed o n a range of verbal and non-verbal tests, including matched tasks that comp ared pre-illness and post-illness onset recollections. In contrast, her per formance on retrograde memory tests, using detailed autobiographical and pu blic events verbal and photographic tasks, showed a temporally-graded retro grade amnesia, more particularly affecting memory for autobiographical epis odes. Possible mechanisms underlying CH's focal retrograde amnesia are disc ussed in terms of Damasio's time-locked multiregional retroactivation model . (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.