How does amnesia not affect language and speech?

425 viewsBiologyOther

How does amnesia not affect language and speech?

In: Biology

6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Different “kinds” of memories are stored in different places in the brain. Movement, speech, emotions, senses, tasks & skills, history, working memory, and all those sorts of things each have a different, localized area, and damage to that specific area generally impairs that function and not much else (for example, look at the case of [Phineas Gage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage), who had a rail spike go through his head and lost basically all his emotional control but retained a good bit of his original mind).

All of that is to say, unless a brain injury specifically damages the areas responsible for higher cognitive functioning, language (words & grammar), or speech (converting mental words into vocal sounds), you generally won’t lose the ability to speak.

As a quick aside, there’s also two major forms of amnesia: retrograde, in which you forget your history from before the incident but can still make new memories, or anterograde, in which you remember everything but can’t make new memories – as soon as something in your present leaves short-term memory, it’s gone forever.

You are viewing 1 out of 6 answers, click here to view all answers.