Acquired Amnesia in Childhood: A Single Case Study C. L.

1
Acquired Amnesia in Childhood A Single Case
StudyC. L.

• Nicole E. Iannone

2
Who is it?

• C. L.
• 8-year old girl

3
What Went Wrong?

• Surgical removal of a brain tumor from the left
  cerebral ventricle at the age of 4.
• Healthy until 3 years, 9 months, difficulty with
  balancing and walking.
• Brain exam identified a tumor in the left lateral
  and third ventricles with abnormal accumulation
  of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles.
• Signs of elevated blood pressure in the brain.
• 9 days after exam underwent surgical removal of
  tumor
• 14 months after the tumors removal, a new MRI
  showed a lesion to the head of the left caudate
  nucleus, which was surgically removed assumed to
  be tissue destruction due to radiation.

4
Nature of the Damage
5
Nature of the Damage

• Diffuse damage
• Level of damage between tiny and massive
• An area of cortical-subcortical damage at the
  level of the caudal portion of the left frontal
  lobe.
• At the cortical area, the superior gyrus and
  cingulate gyrus were damaged.
• At the subcortical leve, the corpus callosum,
  white matter surrounding the front of the left
  lateral ventricle, the caudate nucleus, the
  thalamus, the superior colliculus, and the fornix
  were damaged.
• Because of the enlargement of the left ventricle,
  the left hippocampus slipped down in relation to
  the contralateral hippocampus, with consensual
  twisting of the left fornix.

6
Memory

• Results from testing
• Could not recover recent verbal data from
  episodic long-term memory.
• Performed well on short-term verbal tests.
• Problems with episodic visual-spatial memory did
  not have any memory of a visual sequence after a
  5 minute delay.
• Can read and write but has some difficulty.

7
Memory

• Anterograde Amnesic Syndrome Normal short-term
  memory but poor explicit long-term memory
• Trouble remembering day-to-day events and
  information
• Main problem was inability to consolidate new
  episodic memory traces in the episodic memory
  system
• Verbal abilities equivalent to her chronological
  age

8
What We Can Learn

• Some case studies showed that semantic abilities
  are dependent on the workings of episodic memory
  (Squire Zola, 1998).
• The case of C. L. supports a theory of at least
  partially different routes to memory for
  autobiographical and factual information.
• Adds to literature supporting a theory that
  children who cannot store episodic information in
  memory can store semantic memory

9
What We Can Learn

• Theory is hippocampal functioning is necessary
  for episodic functioning
• Perirhinal cortex might be responsible for
  semantic memory
• Damage in the left hippocampus and a sectioning
  of the fornix disconnecting the mesial temporal
  structures from the diencephalic nuclei likely
  responsible for the episodic memory deficit

10
Outlook

• No specific therapies being attempted
• After 4 years C. L. could increase her factual
  knowledge and revealed a lexical-semantic
  repertoire similar to children of the same age

11
Questions Still to Be Answered

• It remains unclear whether or not C. L. will ever
  be able to retain autobiographical memory.
• Is this situation different for children than it
  is for adults?