Brain Injury and Memory Impairment

Brain injury contributes to memory impairment in many cases. A huge number of patients report impaired memory following head trauma. Memory has great significance in our daily lives. In practice, individuals facing memory problems due to head injuries may commonly suffer from either retrograde amnesia or anterior grade amnesia.

Amnesia refers to the condition in which an individual experiences loss of memory. While retrograde amnesia refers to the inability to recall events occurred prior to the head injury, anterior grade amnesia refers to the memory loss following the brain injury.

The Link between Brain and Memory

Both short-term and long-term memory processes constitute three components – encoding, storage and retrieval. The memory process is based on the interaction of these three components, which occur in different locations in the brain. Not sufficient research has been conducted to investigate the exact location of long-term memory and related brain areas, however, scientists hypothesize that the role of hippocampus is crucially significant in fabricating long term memory.

Although scientists are unable to locate the long-term memory storage area in the brain, the hypothesis of encoding and storage of information in related chunks is highly appreciated among researchers. The pre-frontal cortex is recognized as the site of working or short-term memory in the brain. It is supported by the experiments revealing that the prefrontal cortex always seems to be occupied following a brain injury.

Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter involved in learning and memory process. The researchers design medicinal drugs which can mimic the function of acetylcholine. Many of these drugs are designed to treat severely impaired memory resulting from brain injury. Although these types of medications are to some extent effective in treating severe memory loss problems, they offer less benefit in the case of mild memory problems.

Effects of Brain Injury on Memory

Brain injury may result in diffuse axonal injury or, in simple terms, damage in nerve cells. This type of injury affects the electro-chemical messaging in the brain. This leads to the destruction of formerly established complex connection in the brain contributing to memory process. Consequently, intricate or unusual assignments may seem frustrating, and the concerned individual tries to cope up with a brain comprising of mental fogginess.

Memory impairment due to brain injury affects other parts of an individual’s life quite profoundly such as cognition, emotional reactions, decision-making pattern and many others. Traumatic brain injury contributing memory impairment may largely vary from person to person. Both the physical characteristics of the injury and the psychological setup of an individual determine the functional incompetence. While some individuals recover pretty fast, others may experience life-changing effects.