Amnesia

[NeedBioInfo]

Can amnesia be caused by a specific drug?

[zoobyshoe]

Can amnesia be caused by a specific drug?
Alcohol.

What's your interest in this?

[NeedBioInfo]

Well I mean long-term amnesia

I was just wondering, there's no like, bad motive or anything

[zoobyshoe]

Severe alcoholics often get to a point where they will buy a drink or bottle rather than a meal. Over time they become malnourished, not getting enough of all the necessary vitamins. A deficiency in a certain B vitamin will lead to the permanent destruction of their ability to form new memories. This is called "Korsakov's Syndrome."

Oliver Sacks describes just such a patient in his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat in chapter 2: The Lost Mariner. The man couldn't remember anything that happened more than ten minutes previously.

[NeedBioInfo]

But what, if anything, can destroy previous memories?

Thanks

[zoobyshoe]

Do you have memories you want to destroy?

[NeedBioInfo]

No but like earlier I was talking to someone about one brain connecting to another brain and they said the information wouldn't accumulate it would conflict. I was wondering is there a drug or something that would cause amneisa so that the information wouldn't conflict

(I mean hypothetically)

[zoobyshoe]

You're still trying to come up with some hare-brained, spare-brain scheme.

[NeedBioInfo]

Well I was just wondering about amnesia out of curiousity too
but you never answered the original question, so...whatever. at least the hare-brained/spare brained thing was kinda funny insulting too but oh well

[Moonbear]

Drugs like Vicodin have amnesic properties. They don't cause loss of older memories, but prevent the formation of new memories while you're under the influence of them, so you don't remember anything that happened while you were taking the drug. It doesn't work for everyone though.