H.M

H.M

1. Suffered from minor seizures from 10 years old which became major seizures from 16

2. William Scoville offered a bilateral mesial temporal lobe resection

   • Removed 2/3s of his hippocampus and 5cm of bilateral mesial temporal cortex

3. He could no longer recognise the faces of people he was just introduced to

   • He forgot daily events almost straight away
   • He underestimated his own age
   • Lost recent memories and could not make new ones
     • Failure to convert STM into LTM, which suggest the structures damaged in H.M were important in formation of LTM
   • Could not learn new words

4. Could draw out the floor plan of his house, showing spatial memory was intact

   • Had intact digit span, so long as it was actively maintained by rehearsal, when it was not easy to rehearse, such as faces or designs, the info slipped away
   • Could gain new motor skills, such as drawing the outline of a star using its reflection
   • The procedure controlled his epilepsy as no. seizures reduced
   • Sensory memory was intact
   • Intelligence level and personality remained the same

5. Showed the difference between declarative memory and non declarative memory

   • Showed memory is a distinct cerebral function, separable from other perceptual and cognitive abilites