MEPO Forum :: 精神

mimizorro Wrote:
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> By Martin Vennard BBC World Service 
> 
> 
> Scientists are trying to understand how amnesiacs
> can lose all memory of their past life - and yet
> remember music. The answer may be that musical
> memories are stored in a special part of the
> brain.
> 
> When British conductor and musician Clive Wearing
> contracted a brain infection in 1985 he was left
> with a memory span of only 10 seconds.
> 
> The infection - herpes encephalitis - left him
> unable to recognise people he had seen or remember
> things that had been said just moments earlier.
> 
> But despite being acknowledged by doctors as
> having one of the most severe cases of amnesia
> ever, his musical ability and much of his musical
> memory was intact.
> 
> Now aged 73, he is still able to read music and
> play the piano and once even conducted his former
> choir again.
> 
> Now researchers believe they are closer to
> understanding how musical memory is preserved in
> some people - even when they can remember almost
> nothing of their past.
> Clive Wearing conducting the Europa Singers in
> Arezzo, Italy, 1984 Clive Wearing conducting a
> choir seven months before his illness
> 
> At a Society for Neuroscience meeting in
> Washington this month, a group of German
> neurologists described the case of a professional
> cellist, referred to as PM, who contracted herpes
> encephalitis virus in 2005.
> 
> He was unable to retain even simple information,
> such as the layout of his apartment.
> 
> But Dr Carsten Finke of Charite University
> Hospital in Berlin says he was "astonished" that
> the cellist's musical memory was largely intact
> and that he was still able to play his
> instrument.
> 
> The brain's medial temporal lobes, which are
> largely destroyed by severe cases of herpes
> encephalitis are "highly relevant" for remembering
> things such as facts and how, where and when an
> event happened.
> 
> "But this case and also the Clive Wearing case
> suggest that musical memory seems to be stored
> independently of the medial temporal lobes," Dr
> Finke says.
> 
> Musical therapy
> 
> He has also studied the case of a Canadian patient
> who in the 1990s lost all musical memory after
> having surgery that damaged another part of the
> brain known as the superior temporal gyrus.
> Continue reading the main story
> “Start Quote
> 
>     When the music stops he falls back into this
> abyss”
> 
> Deborah Wearing
> 
> This has led him to conclude that the structures
> of the brain used for musical memory "might be the
> superior temporal gyrus or the frontal lobes".
> 
> Dr Finke says more research is needed to confirm
> this hypothesis.
> 
> "But what is really new in this case is that we
> could show that in such a severe and dense amnesia
> there's still an island intact of memory, the
> musical memory," he says.
> 
> Dr Finke thinks it may be possible to use this to
> improve PM's rehabilitation and that of other
> amnesiacs.
> 
> "It's very interesting to know that in these
> patients the memory is intact at all, so it could
> be used as a gateway to these patients. You could
> think about maybe coupling special music to
> activities like taking medication.
> 
> "They can also do musical therapy, starting to
> play music again and by doing this gaining some
> quality of life," he says.
> 
> Such techniques should be applicable to both
> musicians and non-musicians as they share the same
> memory systems.
> 
> "We know that musicians have differently adapted
> brains - some areas of the brain are larger than
> in non-musicians, but it's not so easy to think
> that they develop a new system," he says.
> 
> Damaged lobes
> 
> Musical memory isn't necessarily the same as other
> types of memory, says Dr Clare Ramsden a
> neuro-psychologist with Britain's Brain Injuries
> Rehabilitation Trust, which is studying the case
> of three musicians, including Mr Wearing.
> Clive Wearing and his wife Deborah at the piano
> Clive Wearing plays well, but he has no memory of
> having played before
> 
> "That's potentially because it isn't just
> knowledge. It's something you do," Dr Ramsden
> says.
> 
> Different aspects of playing music involve
> different parts of the brain, she has concluded.
> 
> "The research we're doing is starting to show that
> people with damage to mainly their frontal lobes,
> their musical skills are affected differently to
> people like Clive whose medial temporal lobes are
> damaged.
> 
> "Clive can still play and read music, but people
> with frontal lobe injuries might have difficulty
> reading and performing a piece of music for the
> first time, but are better at pieces they already
> know," Dr Ramsden says.
> 
> Prof Alan Baddeley of the University of York, who
> has written study papers on Mr Wearing, said he
> was not surprised by the findings of the German
> team.
> 
> "PM's case is a very good example that memory
> isn't unitary, that there's more than one kind of
> memory," he said.
> 
> "Amnesia doesn't destroy habits, but sufferers do
> lose the ability to acquire and retain information
> about new events."
> 
> Handel's Messiah
> 
> Clive Wearing's wife Deborah has written a book,
> Forever Today, about how their lives have been
> affected by his amnesia. She says all his musical
> skills are still intact.
> Clive and Deborah on their wedding day in 1983
> Clive and Deborah Wearing were married in 1983
> 
> "If you give Clive a new piece of music he sight
> reads it and plays it on the piano, but you can't
> say he's learnt it," she told the BBC World
> Service.
> 
> But she adds: "Clive has no knowledge of ever
> having played the piano or whether he still can."
> 
> He has lived in specialist residential care since
> 1992, having spent his first seven years of
> illness in a secure psychiatric unit.
> 
> "Even though he's had a piano in his own room for
> 26 years he doesn't know it until it's pointed out
> to him."
> 
> Ms Wearing says her husband's performance does
> improve, when he plays a piece regularly, even
> though he has no memory of having played the piece
> or anything else before.
> Extract from Clive Wearing's diary in 1990 Extract
> from Clive Wearing's diary in 1990, where he
> records the moment he woke up over and over again
> 
> However, she says he does remember things he has
> known all his life or performed regularly. "He
> learnt Handel's Messiah as a child and can still
> sing it," she says.
> 
> She says he remembers her and their mutual love
> and that music is a wonderful pastime for both of
> them.
> 
> "Music is a place where we can be together
> normally because while the music's going he's
> totally himself. He's totally normal.
> 
> "When the music stops he falls back into this
> abyss. He doesn't know anything about his life. He
> doesn't know anything that's happened to him ever
> in his life."