Semantic acquisition without memories: evidence from transient global amnesia

Transient global amnesia (TGA), characterised by a profound anterograde amn esia, is a model of interest to study the acquisition of novel meanings ind ependent of episodic functioning. Three patients were tested during a TGA a ttack, two in the early recovery phase and the third during the acute phase of TGA, with a semantic priming task involving a restructuring process of conceptual knowledge. During TGA, all patients demonstrated priming effects . Results obtained the day after the episode with the same task showed that these effects persisted at least one day. Episodic memory seems not to be critical for the formation of novel connections among unrelated semantic re presentations, in accordance with Tulving's model of memory, i.e. episodic memory is not necessary for the acquisition of semantic information. NeuroR eport 12:3865-3869 (C) 2001 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.