Medical Can amnesia be caused by a specific drug?

NeedBioInfo · Sep 19, 2005

Can amnesia be caused by a specific drug?

zoobyshoe · Sep 20, 2005

NeedBioInfo said:

Can amnesia be caused by a specific drug?

Alcohol.

What's your interest in this?

NeedBioInfo · Sep 20, 2005

Well I mean long-term amnesia

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

zoobyshoe · Sep 20, 2005

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 · Sep 20, 2005

But what, if anything, can destroy previous memories?

Thanks

zoobyshoe · Sep 20, 2005

Do you have memories you want to destroy?

NeedBioInfo · Sep 20, 2005

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 · Sep 20, 2005

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

NeedBioInfo · Sep 20, 2005

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 · Sep 21, 2005

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.