Islands of memory

People with anterograde amnesia have trouble recalling new information and new autobiographical events, but the data are less consistent in regards to the latter.

Medveds and Hirst recorded the presence of islands of memory — detailed accounts — that were described by such patients. The island memories were a combination of semantic and episodic memories. The researchers recorded patients giving long narratives with a fair amount of detail that resembled memories that the patients had prior to the trauma. The appearance of islands of memory could have something to do with the functioning of adjacent cortical areas and the neocortex. In addition, the researchers suspect that the amygdala played a role in the narratives.