How Do We Lose Our Memory?

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How Do We Lose Our Memory?

3 Answers

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Answer 1

Technically, your memory is not lost, unless that area of the brain becomes damaged by physical attack, or disease. Otherwise, it is a matter of the pathways to the memory being inaccessible. Think of it in terms of your home computer. Think of the file on your desktop as your memory, and the desktop on the computer being your conscious self.

When you click on the icon to the file, it opens the file and you use it, just like your memory. If you try to recall something, you access it and use it. Now say you go to where the file is actually at on the hard drive, and you physically change its location without changing the access information on the desktop. When you click on the icon now, it gives you an error file not found.

It's still there; you just can't get to it the way you used to. Your memory works in fairly the same way. Only, what happens instead of the memory being moved is the pathways you use to get to that memory deteriorate with lack of use. So as time goes by with you using the information to a less extent, your brain has to find other ways to locate the memory. Sometimes it can by focusing on like minded events or having it flashed back by remembered sights, sound or smells. Sometimes, it is jus untraceable.

Answer 2

Memory loss can be caused because of many things some of the most common causes of memory loss are ageing, Alzheimer's disease, Neurodegenerative illness, Head trauma and illness, Hysteria often accompanied by confusion, Seizures, Alcoholism, Transient global amnesia, Depression, Herpes encephalitis, Other brain infection, etc.

One of the most well known forms of memory loss is Amnesia; it is a medical state in which the memory is damaged. The origin of amnesia is natural or functional. Natural causes consist of damage caused to the brain because of trauma or disease, or at times because of consumption of certain drugs.

Another ill effect of amnesia is the inability to envisaging the future. In anterograde amnesia, fresh events contained in the direct memory are not transported to the permanent as long-term memory, so the victim will not be able to bear in mind anything that take place after the onset of this type of amnesia for more than a short period of time following the event.

Answer 3

No person really knows how much he or she remembers! Just close your eyes and try to recall everything you have ever seen. All the people, all the houses, all the streets, and all the objects you have ever looked at, and all the words and numbers you have ever learned.
There seems to be no end to it. In our brain there is a visual, memory centre where these millions of impressions are stored away, as neatly as in a good photographic library. We cannot yet explain how this miracle of filing away takes place. But we do know that it takes place in an orderly manner, according to subjects.
Because of this orderly arrangement, it is possible for one section to be injured or destroyed without harming other sections. For example, a person may have a brain injury or a haemorrhage and have his storehouse of certain memories wiped out. He may have "forgotten" how to use words, but he may still be able to use numbers!
Sometimes people have memory blindness" because of old age or an injury that prevents them from recognizing objects they see. They may look at a ball and not know what it is. But if they touch it, they are able to recognize it, because they are not depending on their visual storehouse of memory.
Our brain also has an auditory memory centre. Here are stored all the sounds we remember, just as if it were a vast library of gramophone records.
A person may also suffer from amnesia. This is usually caused by a state of great anxiety, and it makes a person forget certain associations which, unconsciously, he does not want to remember. When people with amnesia are treated, these associations can be restored and their memory may come back to normal.